Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is an online advertising model that provides an efficient way to promote products and services to users as well as companies without creating our own products and services.
Affiliate marketer’s main role is to join affiliate programs, find efficient and reputable products to promote, and then share those products with the target audience to earn the profit.
In our Affiliate Marketing tutorial, we are going to discuss the following topics –
- Affiliate Marketing Terminology
- Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
- Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing
- Parts of Affiliate Marketing
- How to Start Affiliate Marketing
- How does Affiliate Marketing Work?
- Types of Affiliate Marketing Channels
- Affiliate Marketing Tools
- How to Create Account in Affiliate Marketing
- Most Popular Affiliate Marketing Companies in India
Affiliate Marketing Terminology
There are the following common terms that we generally used in Affiliate Marketing –
1. Affiliates
Affiliates are the persons who promote products and services for a particular website to earn commissions.
2. Affiliate Program
Most of the companies such as Flipkart, Amazon, Bluehost, Hostgator, and more run their Affiliate programs to promote products and services. It also offers a commission to those affiliates who target the customers to buy their products.
3. Affiliate Link
An affiliate link is a link which a company offers to its affiliate to promote products and services. It also informs the company that which link is clicked by the customer to reach their product.
4. Affiliate ID
Affiliate ID is quite similar to Affiliate Link. Some companies offer Affiliate ID in place of Affiliate Link. Affiliate IDs are also used to promote products as well as services.
5. Payment Mode
Payment mode is used by the companies to give payments to their affiliates. Most of the companies use Check, Wire Transfer, PayPal, and more to give payment to their affiliates.
6. Commission Percentage
The commission is the amount that is offered to affiliates based on the sale of products.
Note: Commission percentage entirely depends upon the company.
7. 2-Tier Affiliate Marketing
Currently, 2-Tier Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to earn money. It works as a Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM). It allows us to recommend others to join Affiliate marketing, and if the person recommended by you join it, then you get a commission form the sale that is made through a recommended link.
8. Affiliate Marketplace
Affiliate Marketplace is a company that offers affiliate programs on various different subjects.
Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
A list of Advantages of Affiliate Marketing is as follows –
1. Cost-effective
Affiliate Marketing is cost-effective because it can be started at a low cost, quickly, and without any hassle.
2. Convenient and flexible
Affiliate Marketing is more convenient and flexible because it allows marketers to do their jobs form the home, so they can decide their working hours according to their convenience.
Affiliate Marketing is flexible because it offers the following 3 types of rewards –
- Pay-per-sale – It means you have to pay a percentage of the sale price to the affiliate marketer who convinces customers to purchase the product via affiliate marketing.
- Pay-per-click – It is a commission that is based on the number of users an affiliate marketer directs to the organization’s website.
- Pay-per-lead – It assigned to affiliate marketers when any visitors fill his/her personal information on our site using the contact form.
3. Performance-Based Rewards
In other jobs, we get a fixed amount of salary in a month, but affiliate marketing is completely based on the performance. If we have excellent marketing, writing, reviewing, and presentation skills then we can earn more money without doing more effort.
4. Increase Traffic
Affiliate Marketing helps us to increase traffic faster by generating more links related to products. Generating more traffic also helps us to improve search engine ranking.
5. Secondary Source of Income
Affiliate Marketing helps us to do secondary job parallels without interrupting the current job. Affiliate marketers work few hours and gain more income.
6. No expertise needed
Expert marketers (affiliates) are not required to run the affiliate market. Everyone without a professional degree can learn it easily.
7. Low Investment Costs
We can start Affiliate Marketing at low investment costs. To work as Affiliate marketers, you need only electricity, ISP subscription, and high-speed internet connection.
8. No customer support
Affiliate marketers do not face problems related to customer support, bookkeeping, and e-commerce. An affiliate marketer handles these entire problems himself to promote and resell the products.
9. Passive Income
Passive income is one of the biggest advantages of Affiliate Marketing. It helps affiliate marketers to earn passive income. Passive income means to earn money when you are sleeping.
Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing
There are the following disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing –
1. We Don’t Control our Competition
As we all know that Affiliate Marketing gain popularity day by day, so our competition also varies based on the industry. Most of the companies offer various offers to attract customers, such as discount offers, first-time shopping offers, etc.
2. No Guarantee of Revenue
No organization guarantees that the Affiliate Marketer will earn the expected revenue. The biggest challenge for Affiliate Marketers is to put all their efforts to maximize the product’s brand. If they are unable to maximize the brand of the product, it is very difficult to estimate how much money they made in the end.
3. Affiliate Link Hijackers
In Affiliate Marketing, there may be a chance that our Affiliate link gets hacked by the hackers.
4. False Advertisements
It is the biggest disadvantage of Affiliate Marketing. Sometimes, Affiliate Marketing associates with spammy marketing campaigns that produce spammy, non-relevant, dummy, and false products to the customers, so always be aware black affiliate marketing strategies and false advertisements otherwise your website can completely destroy the organization’s reputation.
5. Requires self-Discipline
Affiliate Marketing is like traditional marketing means there is not any established agenda, routine, and guidance to do work.
Parts of Affiliate Marketing
There are the following parts of Affiliate Marketing –
1. The Merchant
The merchant is also known as Maker, retailer, creator, seller, or brand. In Affiliate Marketing, the role of a merchant is to create or sell products and services. The merchant may be a single entrepreneur, social media influencer, or a large company.
2. The Affiliate
The Affiliates are also known as publishers, distributors, and advertisers. It is quite similar to the merchant. Affiliate marketers advertise merchant’s products and services to earn money from the customers. The money that affiliate marketers earn form the customer is known as “Commission.”
3. The Customer
Customers are the most important part of Affiliate Marketing. Customers are the users who use products or services to meet their own requirements. In Affiliate marketing, marketers are always trying to find a smart and efficient way to reach their potential customers and sell their products to them. As we know, without customers, there will be no commissions, and without commissions, Affiliate Marketing has no existence.
4. The Network
In Affiliate Marketing, networks are used to handle all tracking, reporting, and payment activities related to the affiliate. Some affiliate networks help us to provide full-service management or a self-service management program. We can also use the affiliate network to promote different types of consumer products, such as toys, tools, and more.
Example: Amazon is one of the biggest Affiliate Network.
5. Agencies
Agencies are used to manage the day-to-day operations and strategies of a program.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing?
In the current era, everyone wants to earn money in the easiest way. Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest and simplest ways to earn money online.
There are the following steps to start Affiliate Marketing –
Step 1: Choose your Niche
It is the first step to start Affiliate Marketing. Before building your site, first analyze that what niche you are going to target for sale. Every affiliate marketer has a niche that helps him to target more customers and increase the search engine ranking. The growth of Affiliate Marketing entirely depends upon the niche.
To choose a niche, start to work on the following questions –
- In which field, we have advanced knowledge?
- Do people take an interest in the niche which we select?
- Will the demand for our niche stay consistent or not?
- Is there a lot of competition for my niche?
- Are the affiliate marketer helps us to promote our niche?
Step 2: Create your website
Creating a website helps us to publish the products and services that we are offering to our customers. Using website customers actually know that which type of products we are selling to our customer and their reactions on the particular product and service.
There are the following things that you should have to follow while creating the website –
- Buy a domain
- Purchase and set up hosting
- Install a blogging platform
- Install attractive and meaningful theme
- Create content
Step 3: Research and Select Affiliate Products
Once you find your niche, it’s time to research and select the products you want to promote.
There are the following questions keep on your mind when you select the Affiliate products –
- What types of merchants use the affiliate network?
- How much commission did you earn from the product?
- Do you want to be associated with the products and services?
- What kind of support does the program provide you with?
- What are the views of the audience on your product?
Step 4: Create high-quality content
Approximately 82% of customers do research before purchasing any product. High-quality content helps merchants and affiliate marketers to grow their business by increasing sales. Affiliate Marketing allows us to use different content platforms to attract the audience and generate traffic on our website. An informative content helps us to answer questions and solve the problem that the user arises.
To increase the leads, try to make easy sentences, paragraphs, and short notes on the website, which is frequently understandable by the readers.
Always remember the following things on your mind while creating high-quality content for the website –
- Always try to choose the right keywords
- Focus on the practical value of an article.
- Create a proper structure for your article using special marks, headings, lists, and bullets.
- Focus on those products in which customers take more interest.
- Try to add video content.
- Clearly mention the discounts and offers.
- Include more examples to define your ideas.
Step 5: Drive Traffic to your Affiliate Links
Drive traffic on the website helps us to achieve a marketing goal.
There are the following ways to drive traffic on our website –
i. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine ranking is based on the keyword. A high ranking of search engines helps us to generate high organic traffic. Always try to write each page with Meta description, Meta title, image tags, and headings.
ii. Make sure your link is visible to the audience
Make sure the link that you generate for the audience is clearly visible to the audience on your website. For example, if you create a site for selling electronic material, then the “Buy now” button should be visible to your visitor.
iii. Paid traffic
Paid traffic is the best way to drive traffic to your website. The advantage of paid lead generation techniques is that users who click on your links are high up the buying cycle. And you will receive the cost of your advertisement with the commission that you receive per sale.
iv. Build an email list
Once your website is online visible to the audience, then you need to analyze those visitors who regularly visit the website and take an interest in your products. You can use pop-up or free plugins to create an email subscription or sign-up area on your website.
An email list helps you to target more audience and provide an efficient way to promote new products. You can regularly send emails to customers related to periodically promotions and special offers. The best tool to build an email list is Mailchimp. it allows you to send 2000 emails in a month.
v. Use social media
Social media platforms help you to drive traffic. Using social media platforms, you can publish various long articles, blogs, images, videos, gifs, and more to promote an affiliate link.
Select social media platforms according to your business.
For example, if your business is based on art, fashion, or something that then Instagram is the best platform for you.
Note: Currently, Pinterest becomes the most popular social media platform for a viable method of promotion.
How does Affiliate Marketing work?
Affiliate Marketing uses following simple steps to promote business –
- Affiliates markets promote the product’s brand on their affiliate’s site.
- Customers click on promotional brands on the affiliate’s site, and cookies are stored on the customer’s browser, which makes it possible for affiliate markets to track the customer’s progress from the affiliate’s site using the brand’s shopping cart.
- Now, customer redirects to the brand’s website and purchases the products and services from the brand.
- The Software as a service (SaaS) platform automatically pays the commission to the affiliate marketer for driving the sale.
Types of Affiliate Marketing Channels
There are the following types of Affiliate Marketing Channels –
1. Influencers
Influencers are the person who holds power to impact the purchasing decisions of a large segment of the population. They attain a great position to get more benefits from affiliate marketing. The role of influences is to direct consumers to the seller’s products through social media posts, blogs, and interactions with their followers.
2. Bloggers
Bloggers help you to increase the seller’s conversions. They also help you to promote your business brand and drive traffic to the seller’s site.
3. Coupon Sites
Coupon sites are important for businesses. It allows you to get a huge amount of traffic by increasing the revenue. The disadvantage of coupon sites is that the site’s organic ranking is associated with your organization’s name and coupon code.
4. Email Marketing
Email Marketing is the most important source of affiliate marketing income. Most of the affiliates use email marketing to earn commission by selling products and services.
5. Large media websites
Large media websites help you to promote products to the audience through the use of affiliate links and contextual banners. It also improves conversion rates for both the seller and the affiliate.
Affiliate marketing tools
A list of effective Affiliate Marketing tools is given below –
1. Flippa
Flippa is the most essential and simple to use Affiliate Marketing tool. It allows affiliate marketers to buy and sell those business sites which have a strong backlink profile for SEO growth.
2. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the first Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool. It offers various advanced SEO functionality such as Metadata description customization, Canonical link customization, Meta robots customization, and Sitemap creation.
Note: Yoast SEO is a free to use tool. You can also use its paid version that offers 24/7 availability.
3. SEMrush
SEMruch is the most powerful and trusted affiliate marketing tool for keyword search, fixing SEO errors, and competitor analysis. It contains a massive database system with 46 million domains and 120 million keywords. Companies like PayPal, Forbes, Hyatt, and Philips use SEMruch to manage visibility.
The main advantage of SEMrush is that it provides a great way to achieve our content marketing goals and also uses various content audit tools to improve the quality of content.
4. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is a lead generation platform that helps you to start promoting your affiliates. It also helps you to create eye-catching campaigns with various affiliate marketing efforts such as exit pop-up windows, floating bars, full screen, welcome mats, and more.
OptinMonster includes the following features –
- Geo-Location Targeting
- Exit-Intent Technology
- Campaign Scheduling
- Convert website visitors into subscribers.
- Integrate with platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Shopify, and many more.
Pricing: OptinMonster’s basic plan is available at $19/Month, the pro plan is at $59/Month, and the Growth plan is at $99/Month.
5. WPForms
Flippa is the most essential and simple to use Affiliate Marketing tool. It allows affiliate marketers to buy and sell those business sites which have a strong backlink profile for SEO growth.
It integrates with OptinMonster and other best email marketing services to build a store relationship with visitors.
6. Ahrefs
Ahref is similar to SEMrush. It is popular competitor research, keyword research, on-page audits, and content analysis tool that help you to review competitor’s link profile to find new link building opportunities, Analyzing backlinks, and exploring new link building opportunities. It also helps us to analyze “content gaps” compared to your competitors.
7. CJ Affiliate
CJ (Commission Junction) is the largest online affiliate marketing network designed to drive bigger results. It is the best tool for building an affiliate partnership. The main role of CJ Affiliate is to connect stores with marketers to reach millions of online customers every day.
There are the following features of CJ Affiliate –
- It offers real-time transaction Monitoring
- It works on pay for performance
- Deep Link Generator
- It contains deep link automation
- It helps us to drive more sales
8. MailChimp
Mailchimp is an easy, simple, and cost-effective affiliate marketing tool. It is an email service provider tool which helps us to enhance our affiliate campaign. It allows us to create, set-up, and manage the user’s profile. Currently, Mailchimp becomes one of the most popular email newsletter service providers.
It is free up to 2,000 subscribers. It has over 11 million active customers, with a total audience of 4 billion.
How to Create Account in Affiliate Marketing
Before starting the Affiliate Marketing, we have to register with the company and create our affiliate account for the selected company.
Note: In our Affiliate Marketing tutorial, we are going to create an affiliate account on Amazon.
There the following steps to create an account in Affiliate Marketing –
Step 1: Copy-paste the below link on any browser or simply click on the below link. https://affiliate-program.amazon.in/
Step 2: The below window appears on the screen in which click on the Join Now for Free.
Step 3: The Amazon Login window appears on the screen. If you already registered with Amazon, then enter your email, mobile number, and password to login otherwise click on the Create your Amazon account.
Step 4: The below window appears on the screen in which enter your details such as your name, email address, password, and confirm password. Once you fill the details, click on the Create your Amazon account.
Step 5: A verify email address window appears on the screen. In which enter the OTP to verify your email address and click on the Create your Amazon account.
Step 6: The Account Information page appears on the screen in which enter information carefully and click on the Next at the bottom right corner of the screen.
Step 7: Once you click on the Next, your websites and mobile app List window appears on the screen in which enter your website and click on the Next.
Step 8: The profile page appears on the screen in which create or enter your profile details.
Step 9: Scroll down the window and select the items that you intend to list on your websites or mobile apps.
Step 10: Once you select items, scroll the window, Traffic & Monetization section appears on the screen in which select that how do you drive traffic to your website and answer some basic questions as shown in the below screenshot.
Step 11: Enter the captcha and click on the Finish at the bottom right corner of the screen.
The below screenshot shows that your affiliate account is created successfully.
Now it asked for a payment option if you do not want to go with payment options then click on the Later. Once the Click on the Later, the following dashboard appears on the screen, including the Earning Overview, Summary for this month, Total Fees, Total Bounties, and clicks. Enter the information carefully, then click on the Next.
Most popular Affiliate marketing Companies in India
Currently, affiliate marketing is one of the biggest sources to earn money online.
1. Flipkart Affiliate
Flipkart is one of the best Affiliate marketing companies because it offers various services such as better product categories, competitive payment, on-time payment, and accurate tracking of the order.
Flipkart Affiliate program uses the following Affiliate Tools –
- Promotional Banners & Widgets
- Search Tools
- A set of APIs to access Flipkart’s products.
- Search tools
- Affiliate Bookmarklet Widget
2. Amazon Affiliate
Amazon Affiliate program was launched in 2013. The aim of this program is to maximize the profits for the affiliates. Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce companies, so it provides high commission rates, high conversion rates, and average order value to its customers. It offers average commission 0.3%-12%. The commission completely depends upon the range of products bought.
Amazon Affiliate program includes tools like –
- SiteStripe toolbar
- Banners
- Product Links
- Advertising APIs
3. eBay
eBay is the best platform for those who want to earn money quickly and easily. It helps businesses and marketers to promote their business and earn commission after a sale has been made from their links.
eBay uses the following affiliate marketing tools –
- Ad Groups
- APIs
- Smart Links
- Smart Sales
- Promotions and sales
- Link generators
- banners
4. GoDaddy Affiliate
GoDaddy is one of the best India specific affiliate programs. It helps Affiliate marketers to earn money by sending customers to their website and earning cash on every single sale made through affiliate’s ads. It offers various supportive marketing tools to grow our business online. The advantage of GoDaddy is that it is free to join and provides 24*7 supports to the customers.
5. MakeMyTrip Affiliate
It is one of the most popular affiliate programs for the travel industry. It offers various effective and efficient services to its customers. It helps customers to get their booking online and quickly through the MakeMyTrip web portal. Using the MakeMyTrip portal, we can book online tickets for the trains, airlines, and top-rated hotels in relevant price.
MakeMyTrip includes the following affiliate tools to grow the business-
- Wordpress plugins
- Cuelinks tool
- Banners
- Ticket booking tools
6. DGM India
DGM is one of the leading digital ad network and affiliate marketing companies which allow affiliates to earn money by promoting the products and services on the website. DGM is available for free to join. It is a highly scalable and reliable product delivery platform for both affiliates and customers.
How DGM works?
- First, join DGM India as a publisher
- Choose a campaign
- Start earning money
7. HostGator Affiliate
HostGator is the best web hosting company and a famous affiliate marketing company. It allows affiliates to earn money by promoting products. It is the best platform for those who want to deal with web design and web hosting services. It is a very trusted site for the affiliates.
The main advantage of HostGator is that it provides 24*7 supports to customers, and hosting plans come with 99.9 % uptime.
8. Optimise
Optimise is a well-known affiliate marking company that provides its services to more than 30 countries. Optimise is also known as “OMG India.” It is the best affiliate marketing company that has excellent client services. It also provides an opportunity to promote CPA, CPS, and mobile offers.