You have a product or service that you want to sell,

OR

Do you have a blog or a social media page that you want to monetize?

No matter what position you are in, this article will hopefully help you understand what affiliate marketing is and how it can help you.

1. What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing basically consists of promoting other products, where a commission is charged for each sale.

Let’s say you sell shower gel. Instead of giving money for ads on Facebook or Google, you will give it directly to a blogger or influencer, for each sale it generates.

2. Who is part of the affiliate marketing process

Merchant

Also known as a retailer, brand, or advertiser, is the one who creates the product and sells it to end customers. To continue the example above, if you are a trader it means that you produce and sell shower gel.

Affiliate

Displays ads on its platform in order to generate sales for the merchant and earn a percentage of the profit. Affiliates use other more common online promotion methods such as SEO, PPC, email marketing, content marketing, etc.

Network

It is basically the bridge between the merchant and the affiliate and contains the advertising offers that the affiliate can choose and pay for it. It can be a plug-in that you install on your website or an online platform where you can register both as an affiliate and as a merchant.

What are the benefits of affiliate marketing?

Although the affiliate marketing system has many benefits, among the most important are:

For merchant:

• You pay for results;
• You gain credibility and authority;
• You have the opportunity to reach new audiences.

For affiliates:

• You are rewarded according to the results you bring;
• You don’t need marketing experience;
• Program flexibility.

3.How to become a merchant

1. First, you need to decide how you want to proceed. Do you want to integrate a module on your platform or use an affiliate marketing network? The simplest option is to sign up for such a network.
2. The next step is to join an affiliate marketing network and create an ad offer for your product. It also determines the commission you give to the affiliate in exchange for each sale.
3. On that network, there are a lot of bloggers, influencers, (affiliates) who can send traffic to you and who will be rewarded if they bring you sales.
4. In the end, you will have to pay a small part to the network, but usually, the amounts are small, so you can not worry that you will lose.

4.How to become an affiliate

1. The easiest way to become an affiliate is to already have a blog or community where you can drive traffic to a particular product. An effective way to do this is through reviews.
2. First of all, you have to enter a platform and find a product that you like and that you can talk about passionately on your blog or website.
3. After you sign up and choose an ad, you will receive a special affiliate link, which you can now put on your website, and which will track the number of sales you generate with its help. These links usually contain a long part with “/ ref…” at the end.
4. If you did your job properly, it means that you also generated sales, and you will be paid a certain percentage of them (commission).

5.How to increase your return as an affiliate

When it comes to commissions on affiliate marketing platforms it is very important to keep the following in mind:

Even if you see a lower percentage, think about what it means in real money!

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Things you can try to increase your earnings

For starters, it’s a good idea to create content about what you like or are passionate about.

However, if you want to make sure you have a steady flow of traffic and create relevant content, it would be a good idea to have some SEO knowledge.

Once you have your affiliate links and a decent flow of traffic or a considerable “following”, it’s time to consider creating an email list.

Email is still one of the best ways to promote a product. So you would get a huge advantage over the competition if you learned how to use this promotion platform.

5 Tips That Will Increase Your Chances Of Success As An Affiliate

Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash

Becoming an effective affiliate is not an easy task. You are dealing with banner blindness, readers’ reluctance to any promotional material or advertising, and fierce competition.

If you want to increase your chances of success, it is advisable to respect the following standards related to:

1.Consistency

It’s not enough to create one article a month and expects results overnight. To start seeing those results, it is necessary to have a community of loyal readers, and you attract them by being consistent both quantitatively and qualitatively.

2.Quality

You don’t just have to post mediocre articles on your blog. If you want to generate sales, you have to give value from what you write. That is why it is necessary to focus both on how useful the article is for the reader, but also on the quality of the writing itself.

3.Clarity

Probably the biggest step you can take to drastically improve your writing is to focus on the clarity of the message. It is highly recommended to avoid academic or overly complicated words or forms. The goal is not to impress, but to help.

4.Match

If you followed the first 3 tips, it means that you regularly post quality articles, which means that you are already doing well. The next step is to make sure that the product you are promoting matches the style of content you are creating and the needs and requirements of your readers.

5.Belief (or copywriting)

If you want to make more money, you need to consider a few copywriting concepts.

This article was originally published by Alina Anitei on medium.