Affiliate Marketing in 2017, More Exponential Growth

Affiliate marketing is something near and dear to my heart. Being in the industry for the last 15 years I have seen this industry evolve from something that was a mere tool for companies to extend their reach online, to a term that is “synonymous” with their actual businesses. Many businesses rely solely on affiliate marketing to build their brand, their exposure, and their revenue.

If you are a company with an online presence and you don’t have an affiliate program in 2017, you truly don’t have a presence. It’s that simple.

With Affiliate Marketing in 2017, you have a lot of opportunity online in 2017, more so than I have ever seen. This is going to be the case in subsequent years as the Internet continues to grow, as people are more connected more often, and as more and more companies are continuing to put invest most of their marketing budgets into their affiliate programs (for their online sales anyways).

Affiliate Marketing in 2017, is it ANY Different?

Okay, time for a quick break down of affiliate marketing. First, what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process of promoting another companies product or service in exchange for a commission. There are 100,000's of affiliate programs that you can join, choose products, promote them, then get a cut of every sale.

At the core, you have a product and you have a consumer.

Connecting these two items is YOU, the affiliate (and your affiliate link).

CONSUMER => GOES THROUGH AFFILIATE LINK => BUYS PRODUCT => YOU GET $$

At the core, that is what affiliate marketing is. Obviously there is a bit more to it than this, as in, how do you find and attract consumers, but the process of making money as an affiliate is not any more complex than this.

Here is a diagram we have on the Wealthy Affiliate website that explains the process is a clear flow diagram.

That is what you learn here at WealthyAffiliate.com and when you understand the proper processes of choosing a niche, building out your website, becoming an authority within any niche of your choice, you are truly going to be able to capitalize on this business model which will remain largely unchanged for many years to come.

7 Things You Need to Know About Affiliate Marketing in the Year Ahead

There are many things that you should be aware of prior to heading into affiliate marketing. In fact, I have 7 things that I want you to privy to before you enter into the affiliate marketing world.

1. Affiliate Marketing is Growing at the Fastest Pace ever. It is estimated that the affiliate marketing industry is going to be worth $5.97 billion by 2019. It is growing at an incredible pace and when I look back to when I started out in affiliate marketing back in 2002, I was operating a full time business within a much smaller space. The revenue growth within this industry is growing incredibly fast.
   
2. All Major Online Brands Are Built on Affiliate Marketing. Amazon, Apple, HP, Best Buy, Etsy… you name it. Without affiliate programs, and affiliates, these companies would have WAY less marketshare online. The likes of Amazon have built their empire off of affiliates, it is rare these days when doing research on a product or service you don't come across an Amazon affiliate site.
   
3. There Has Never been this Many Affiliate Programs. Every year, there are more and more affiliate programs as companies see the opportunity to carve out such a vast marketing team online. There are 20-30 huge affiliate networks alone, with 10,000's of affiliate programs not to mention all of the 10,000's of independent affiliate programs.
   
4. There Are Over 500 MILLION Products You Can Promote as An Affiliate. Yes, you read that correctly. There are over 500 MILLION products that you can promote online! This subset of products only continues to grow, not to mention the 100,000's of online and offline services that also have affiliate programs.
   
5. People Are Moving Their Spending Online at a Faster Pace Than Ever. I personally spend most of my money online now, shifting away from offline business. I know it is bad not to support local, but I personally would rather support online (being an Internet entrepreneur) in particular when the prices are better, the selection is unparalleled, and when I know affiliates and fellow Internet entrepreneurs are benefiting from it. This trend is ONLY going to continue.
   
   
6. Almost Every Sale Online Has An Affiliate Behind It. That is correct, almost every purchase that you make online has in some form or another an affiliate behind it and earning a commission. Whether you are doing your Christmas shopping on Amazon or you are buying a service to help you build a business (ahem...), there is almost certainly an affiliate reaping the rewards of a commission. It's brilliant.
   
7. Affiliate Marketing Will Never Die. There was an underlying fear when I started out online in 2002 that affiliate marketing was a temporary thing. Logically it didn’t make sense that such an incredible business model would die, but the marketing teams of some of the biggest product launches started piggybacking the idea of this.

Affiliate marketing is here to stay. It has grown every single year since 2002, creating the greatest opportunity of our lifetime. As offline jobs vanish because people are not shopping as much offline, affiliate marketing grows as a result.

Why Companies Cannot Live Without Affiliate Marketing

Companies like Amazon have grown and exploded their sales online because of their focus on their affiliate program at the core of their marketing.

Instead of spending BILLIONS on marketing their products/services (by the way, they have over 488,000,000 products on their network now), they leverage millions of affiliate marketers through their affiliate program, Amazon Associates.

Think of it this way, if you were a business online would you rather hire an ad executive and a 3-4 person marketing team full time (which would carry costs of $300,000 per year) or would you rather have potentially 100,000’s of marketers working for you on a performance basis where you only have to pay them based on the actual tangible sales?

A marketing executive cannot guarantee results. In fact, most don’t achieve results and are incredibly expensive and then insight a company to spend outrageous costs on advertising. An affiliate marketer is required to get results to get paid, so there is ZERO risk to a company to take on new affiliates.

Thus the model being so brilliant and EVERY major corporation now understands this. Plain and simple, Affiliate Marketing drives the Internet. Mic drop.

Where do you think Affiliate marketing is going in 2017?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, your excitement, and what you are doing in the Affiliate marketing space in the year ahead!