Affiliate marketing provides even non-marketing professionals with a chance to make money without much (or any) investment on their end. This is a great time for beginners to get into affiliate marketing since there are more opportunities than ever before.
If you’re looking to step into the world of online marketing and generate some revenue while you’re at it, look no further. Here’s a definitive guide for affiliate marketing in 2022, designed specifically for beginners.
Let’s get started.
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What Is Affiliate Marketing? [An Overview]
Simply put, affiliate marketing is a process by which you can make money by marketing someone else’s products or services on your online platform.
This usually takes the form of someone’s link placed on your site. If a customer clicks that link, you earn a commission since the customer got to the brand via the link on your site.
5 Major Affiliate Marketing Channels
Different affiliates prefer different advertising channels for the sellers’ products. Here are some of the most common affiliate marketing channels:
Bloggers
Bloggers leverage content marketing to improve visibility for the seller’s link through their own organic ranking. For example, travel bloggers (especially digital nomads) can use the affiliate marketing model to generate revenue for travelling money.
It’s profitable too since there are tons of affiliate programs for travel bloggers that cater to both experienced travellers and beginners.
Email Lists
Some marketers have email lists that they use to send out affiliate links to a wide variety of potential buyers. This channel blurs the line with email marketing. However, the affiliate angle is still the focus of such campaigns.
The email channel requires a solid email list that you’ll need to build up over time (or buy). This makes it somewhat complicated but still profitable if you have the right lists.
Microsites for Paid Search
These are smaller sites that feature content that’s more relevant to audiences. Although they’re linked to a brand’s main site via the brand name, they are a separate entity.
Links to these sites from partner sites are geared toward faster conversions since these microsites have more direct calls to action (CTAs).
Influencers
Affiliate marketing with influencers works in almost the same way as traditional “influencer marketing.” The only difference is that while influencer marketing will have influencers making posts or entire campaigns about a specific product, affiliate marketing will see them adding a link or a mention of a specific product in their posts.
Large Affiliate Marketing Platforms
These are sites that host affiliate marketing opportunities for both sellers and marketers. They host both merchant and affiliate listings that both parties can choose from. Since these are curated lists, it results in generally better revenue for both, as well.
Sites like ClickBank and ShareASale are great examples of such marketplaces. Both of these have several categories of merchants with well-defined revenue packages.
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Top Affiliate Programs for Beginners
The best affiliate programs for beginners should be easy to sign up for and easier to manage.
Here are some beginner-friendly affiliate programs:
- Amazon Associates: Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the oldest and most trusted in the world, with easy sign-up and operation.
- Survey Junkie Affiliates: Survey Junkie’s affiliate program has a simple model which makes you money via the traffic you send over to their site.
- Fiverr Affiliates: Fiverr also has a great traffic-based plan that pays you for bringing traffic to their site.
- CJ Affiliate: CJ.com is an entire affiliate ecosystem that offers lots of affiliate marketing opportunities for a variety of partner types.
The best affiliate programs for beginners allow you to be involved in several of them at once. That’s an added benefit if you want affiliate marketing to be your main source of income.
Becoming a Successful Affiliate Marketer
Here are some tips on how to succeed at affiliate marketing as a beginner:
- Build a connection with your audiences. The better your rapport with them, the more likely they are to follow your affiliate link and make a purchase.
- Review more products and services and create content around that. Show that you’re concerned about your audience purchasing the best products.
- Use a multi-channel approach instead of using a single channel to promote brands. For example, add an email campaign to your social media strategy and vice versa.
- Study demand for products before choosing to promote them. Unpopular or low-demand products may hurt your credibility with audiences.
- Stay up-to-date with the latest affiliate marketing trends, including new linking parameters, marketplaces, and products, among others.
Additionally, you should leverage your online visibility and reputation for better commissions and more lucrative affiliate opportunities.
Final Thoughts
Although affiliate marketing is not new, it’s largely been used by professional marketers, dedicated affiliate marketing firms, and experts who are branching out into other forms of marketing.
That said, it’s still a very viable online marketing avenue for beginners. It’s worth looking into if you’re interested in adopting a digital marketing career, or if you want to make some extra revenue.