What is Affiliate Marketing? and its benefits

What is Affiliate Marketing? and its Benefits

Have you ever thought about earning money online? 

Today you can earn money through the internet in many different ways. Affiliate marketing is one of the popular methods among them.

Read this article for detailed information about what is affiliate marketing and how to start affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing has been a great way to earn money from the Internet since the 1990s. Changes keep happening with time, but even today the business of affiliate marketing is growing.

This is a great way of Digital Marketing which is a very popular strategy to generate online sales and earn passive income. What is affiliate marketing today? How to do Affiliate Marketing? What are its benefits? etc. to talk about.

What is Affiliate Marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is a process in which you promote the product of another person or company and get some percentage of commission on the sale.

Affiliate marketing is a type of online marketing method. In which you tell people about the product in different ways. When a person buys that product by clicking on your affiliate link, then you get some percent commission.

An Affiliate marketer is called an Affiliate, Partner, or Publisher.

The best thing about this business is that you are completely independent, you do not work for anyone company. You can promote different product or service at once and get commission from all.

Benefits of affiliate marketing?

If you start affiliate marketing, then what are the benefits you will get, let's know about it:

1. Absolutely free or can be started with very little cost

Most of the affiliate programs are free to join i.e. you do not need to make any kind of payment for affiliate marketing. You can choose products or services according to your niche or convenience among thousands by simply creating a free account.

Yes, if you want to do affiliate marketing by creating a website, then you will have to invest some money on domain and hosting.

2. Low Risk Excellent Returns

If you talk about the risk in this business, then it is very less, if you are not successful then you will suffer only as much as you have invested in marketing or website.

But if we talk about the ROI (Return of Investment), then very big returns can be found in affiliate marketing.

3. A Best Passive Income Source

This is the biggest advantage of affiliate marketing. With this you can generate excellent passive income. If you create an affiliate marketing website or blog, then you can sometimes get sales from there, work actively or not.

4. You are free to choose the product/company

You are free to decide which product or service you want to promote. You can choose the product according to your audience. There is no pressure on you from any affiliate program.

5. No qualification or experience required

No qualification is required to start an affiliate marketing business. It has nothing to do with how much you have studied, how much experience you have.

A brand new person can also enter this business, learn and earn money.

6. There are many ways to work

Creating a blog or website is the most popular and best way to do affiliate marketing. But this is not the only way. You can promote the product in different ways such as: creating YouTube videos, posting on social media, through email marketing.

7. No need to create marketing material yourself

Most affiliate programs provide you with materials for promotion like banners, images, etc. You don't need to design promotional materials.

How Affiliate Marketing Works?

When you join an affiliate program, you get a unique link called an affiliate link.

When you share this link with people through your website, blog or social media and if someone buys the product by clicking on that link then a sale count is done. For every sale, you get some money.

There are three types of people involved in this whole process of affiliate marketing:

Seller or Product Maker: The person or company who wants to sell his product is called Seller or Merchant. It can be a company making a product or providing a service or even an online store like Amazon.

Affiliate Marketer: The person who promotes the product is called Affiliate Marketer, Affiliate or Publisher.

Consumer: A person who buys goods through the link of an affiliate marketer is called a consumer.

When the customer buys the product, the profit earned is divided between the seller and the affiliate.

How to start Affiliate Marketing?

You have got the basic information about how this business works. So let us now know step-by-step how to start affiliate marketing business:

Step 1 - Choose your Platform

To do this business, you have to select one or the other online platform where you can gather audience and share content with them.

The oldest and most effective way to do affiliate marketing is to promote the product by creating a blog or website. But it is not necessary that you just have to make a website.

You can use any platform to do this work like:

• Blog / Website
• YouTube Channel
• Instagram
• Telegram
• Email
• Facebook Group etc.

Step 2 – Select Niche and Create Content

After choosing the platform, you will have to share content, such as blog posts, images, videos etc. on it. For this, you have to select any one niche. Niche means category i.e. a topic about which you want to create content.

You should choose a topic that people like, a solution to a problem or have knowledge of any work.

Niche can be of many types, for example:

• photography
• Entertainment
• Tutorials
• Computer
• gaming
• home decoration
• Finance
• Gardening etc.

While selecting a niche, do not think only about your interest, you have to keep in mind how beneficial it is to do affiliate marketing on that niche. For this, you should take information about affiliate programs related to that topic in advance.

Step 3 – Join Affiliate Program

After Niche selection, you have to give information about a product in your content and share its affiliate link.

You have to join Affiliate program to find the product. On the Internet, you will find the websites of many affiliate networks, on which create your account.

Some of the famous affiliate networks are as follows:

• Amazon Associates
• Cuelinks
• Commission Junction
• vCommission
• Flipkart Affiliate etc.

According to Niche, after choosing the right product / service for promotion, start sharing the information related to it with the people. Keep in mind, do not recommend a product just to earn money, only promote such a product which is of use to your audience. If possible, try using that product or service yourself first.

Step 4 - Share Affiliate Link

Now you have to share the affiliate link of the selected product inside your content. You can put the link in your blog post, Instagram bio, Facebook profile or post, in the description of a YouTube video.

You can promote affiliate links on different social media platforms in many ways like

• Facebook
• WhatsApp
• Instagram
• Telegram etc.

The best way to do affiliate marketing is to use a blog or website. You can create a blog and write articles on it and put the affiliate link of the product on it.

Keep in mind that you do not bother people by repeatedly asking them to buy the product. Do not always promote, keep sharing the content of people's work.

Step 5 - Bring more and more traffic and increase income

Now if you want more income, then for that you have to bring more and more traffic to your chosen platform, that is, to reach your content to as many people as possible.

If you have created a blog then start promoting your articles, get information about Search Engine Optimization, share it on social media, you can also use advertisements if you want.

If you are doing affiliate marketing from social media, then focus on increasing your followers and reach. For this also, if you want, you can also do paid marketing by investing some money.

Also Read: What is Network Marketing?