The Affiliate Marketing Model

When a visitor to the website clicks on the advertisement, they may be directed to a landing page where they could purchase the advertised product or service.

If a purchase is completed, the seller of the product or service gives a cut to the website owner in exchange for having advertised on the seller’s behalf.

Many large companies and renowned brands offer affiliate marketing schemes to secure cost-effective advertising for their offerings.

For example, Amazon’s affiliate marketing program, Amazon Associates, is a well-known affiliate marketing scheme that is behind all those Amazon ads you’ve seen on your favorite blog.

Cookies (the digital kind used by computers to track website visits) play a key role in the workings of affiliate marketing schemes. When a visitor to the affiliate’s website clicks a link, a cookie is allocated and stored on their device.

The vendor is then able to use this cookie to determine the identity of the affiliate who supported the referral to their landing page. Even if the visitor delays making a purchase, the affiliate will still receive their cut as cookies typically do not contain expiry dates.

To further illustrate the workings of affiliate marketing schemes, let’s consider an example where one operates a health and fitness blog offering exercise hints and tips to readers.

In this example, the operator of the website joins Amazon’s ‘Amazon Associates’ affiliate marketing program and places links and adverts to relevant health and fitness products from Amazon across their blog pages.

Now, when a loyal reader of the blog clicks on one of these links or adverts, they’ll be taken to Amazon to complete the purchase.

Through the magic of cookies, Amazon will know which of their affiliates referred the customer to them to make a purchase. Amazon, having made a sale, gives the affiliate a cut of the profits from the sale.

In this example, the buyer gets their product, Amazon makes a sale and the affiliate gets a cut of the profits from the sale. Everyone’s happy!

The more successful affiliate marketers are usually those who have already built a substantial following or a large audience who regularly engage with their content on the internet.

If you do not have a large number of subscribers, website visitors, or an audience to call your own, it is unlikely that affiliate marketing will bear fruit.

First, it is necessary to develop your authority within your niche. Authority can be achieved through content marketing activities, including blogging or vlogging.

Having content that provides value to your followers, may entice them to follow your recommendations and click on those affiliate links on your website.

All this takes substantial time and effort in the initial stages but as Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Podcast says, “We work hard now to continually reap the benefits later.”

Flynn, who now boasts over $100,000 per month in affiliate marketing income, is amongst a number of internet entrepreneurs using affiliate marketing to achieve six-figure incomes.

For instance, ‘Tom’ from Onlinemediamasters, grew his earnings from affiliate schemes from $20,000 to $150,000 annually.

Clearly, for those willing to invest time upfront, affiliate marketing can pay dividends.

Choose a channel or platform for your content

There are myriad ways to create content. You could publish videos to the likes of YouTube or you could write a blog or post content across social media.

As the first step in becoming an affiliate marketer, you must consider the platform or channel which will utilize your strengths. If you struggle with writing, a blog might not be the best way to go. Similarly, if you’re adept at filming videos and enjoy being on camera, a vlog would be a sensible choice.

Of course, you could use multiple channels to deliver content but it is wise to play to your strengths and avoid spreading yourself too thinly.

Create valuable content to build a brand and attract an audience

As mentioned previously, successful affiliate marketers have invested significant amounts of time in creating content, such as blogs, vlog, and ebooks, to attract a loyal following of potential customers.

The content you create should provide value to the customer and over time, it should also establish your brand as a leading authority within your field. For instance, let’s say your niche is home maintenance and Do-It-Yourself (DIY).

To generate income as an affiliate marketer in this niche, you would first need to be prolific in delivering quality content on a regular basis in order to attract visitors to your website or blog or vlog.

Be helpful to gain trust

Content is the foundation of affiliate marketing success and knowing your audience and their pain-points is critical to delivering the type of content with which they will engage and advocate.

Through your content, you should aim to solve a problem for another person, for example, by explaining how to complete a task or achieve a particular goal.

In assisting your audience through your content, you gain their trust which is absolutely vital if you’re going to have any success in recommending products to them.

Remember – flagrant selling will likely be off-putting for your audience so this should be avoided. Focus on delivering useful information through your content first and foremost.

Choose an affiliate program

When choosing an affiliate program, consider the volume and pay. For example, an affiliate program with high volume offers products with mass appeal while a low-pay affiliate program offers less commission.

For those starting out as an affiliate marketer, applying for a low-volume, high-pay program could see you against some fierce competition.

On the other hand, a low-paying, high-volume affiliate marketing program would need you to achieve a high amount of website traffic to generate a sufficient amount of income.

Consider the type of program that best suits your experience level, monthly traffic, and your niche.

Drive traffic to your website or channel of choice

‘Build it and they will come,’ is unlikely to be a reality for most new affiliate marketers. Getting people to visit your website will be tough because the internet is vast and competitive when it comes to achieving traffic.

However, achieving a healthy number of regular visitors isn’t impossible and can be achieved through Pay Per Click adverts, organic traffic, or through referrals via email or social media.

In the case of Pay Per Click adverts, you could pay a company like Google to display adverts to your website. As the name suggests, you only pay when someone clicks on one of the adverts but keep in mind that pricing varies according to a multitude of factors.

Organic traffic is achieved via a long-term strategy of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) where one implements certain features within website content and adheres to certain practices to ensure their website ranks highly in Google’s search engine results.

While SEO can be done for free, it does require a great deal of time and the learning curve may be steep for a beginner.

Finally, referrals through social media and email is another excellent way to drive traffic to your website. However, achieving traffic via these means requires a considerable social media following or an extensive email list. Both of these things take time to build.

Convert Clicks to Sales

To make sales, you’ll need visitors to your website or YouTube channel to click on your affiliate links. Clicks can be achieved via clever link placement on your webpages.

For instance, you might place your links on parts of the content where you know visitors are likely to dwell. You might also place links within the context of your writing but beware that this can put off visitors if this method is used to excess.

In addition, you can also employ call-to-action features, such as buttons or pop-ups that entice visitors to click.

Once a visitor clicks on an affiliate link, whether a sale (conversion) is made or not is beyond your control.

Nonetheless, you can maximize the chance of conversions by conducting thorough research and due diligence on the affiliate program before you sign up for it.

By aligning your content with your audience and the right affiliate program for your niche, it may be possible to achieve recurring sales to generate a handsome income for you.