Affiliate
marketing is a system which refers customers to business and
earns the commissions from it. This system was affiliate
marketing is easy to track, is more transparent and faster.
Technology made the old referral system.Some of the offline
model that exists which includes: LIC Agents, Matrimonials
Agents , Real estate brokers, Transport drivers etc. Online
affiliate marketing enables the same system for the same micro
transaction. Producers of the Goods and services would get
better ROI focusing on their competitive advantage -production.
A lot of people think -Why can’t marketers do the promotions
themselves because getting customer is difficult
“Affiliates promote products or services through various
channels such as websites, blogs, social media, email
marketing, or other online platforms.”
Vitthal
Jagtap
What is Affiliate
Marketing
The general chain in the offline world is: Manufacturer-
Distributor- Wholesaler- Retailers. Generally Retails earns more
profit. Retailers make more profit because they are close to the
customer. Anyone who can bring the business is rewarded
with a huge margin because marketing and acquiring customers is
the biggest cost in any business. In the online world;
Manufacturer can set up an e-Commerce store and have affiliates
promote their links directly to the end customer.
The benefits of online
Affiliate Marketing
With online
affiliate marketing, Recurring affiliates is easy because a
lot of people can not make goods and services. Instead they
want to do promotions and earn commissions without having
the headache of production and support.
The affiliate
marketing industry is very much mature now. Because of that,
manufacturers set up affiliate programs easily.
There is a
lot more transparency in online affiliate marketing because
commissions are tracked easily. This makes people feel
secure about investing money and effort. The barrier of
entry is low. Even a student can join an affiliate network
and even if he makes one small sale in a month , he can
still get paid up to 50 $ to 100 $.
Online
affiliate marketing is international. You can promote US
products to US customers from India and you can start with
your free organic methods of promotion like content writing.
Content
creators can create more revenue with their visitors through
affiliate promotions than display advertising.
For bloggers,
Google Adsense is not viable source of income more because
of the extremely low EPM i.e. Earning per thousands
impressions.
Youtubers are
also depending more on affiliate earnings for sustaining
their channels than brand sponsorship on youtube channels.
Youtube ads pay only $1 to $1.5 per thousand views. If you
have videos which get a million views , You can make only $
1000 to $1500 .
If you have a
million views on a YouTube video, you can expect at least
10000 clicks on your affiliate link on the description and
from that click 1% buy a product for $100 that’s 100 sales
out of 10,000 Clicks. This is consertive estimate./span>
The size of the Affiliate
Marketing industry :
1.The affiliate marketing spend in the US alone will be $8.2
Billion by 2022. A 3 X growth in the last 10 years.
Affiliate marketing spending
forecast in USA
If we see the data from statista; its 4X growth from 2010 to
2022.
Google trends in between Digital Freelancer and Affiliate
marketer 2.The interest in affiliate marketing is more
than digital freelancing in India. People use their marketing
skills to promote others products directly rather than work
with the clients.
Interesting stats on
Affiliate Marketing:
81 % of advertisers and 84 %
of content publishers in the US use affiliate marketing as one
of the revenue generation resources. (Forrester report)
Advertisers depend on the
affiliates on only for the sales but also for awareness.
Amazon associates have 1 BN
i.e. 1000000 affiliates on its platform
ShareASale has 700,000
affiliates on its platform.
85 % of the shoppers check
for reviews before making an online purchase. This is a great
opportunity for content publishers to get traffic that is in the
buying stage.
More than 80% of the
affiliates are focused on promoting B2C products and services
Content marketing and
blogging is responsible for more than 40% od affiliate sales
generated (Awin report)
35% of affiliate marketers
make at least $ 20,000 in annual revenue from affiliate
marketing.
Why do businesses and
individuals choose affiliate marketing ?:
1. Every business needs
traffic , leads and sales. Internal marketing teams are very
insufficient in achieving their goal because there are so many
sources of traffic out there and marketing teams can not tap it
all the channels.
2. Marketers working in
companies are not that great with their work – because very
intelligent marketers become affiliate marketers. In affiliate
marketing there is no cap in the income they can make- but with
the job, there is a limit.
3. Different affiliates
will tap into the different channels and this gives a wide net
to be cast on the market for the business. The affiliate links
will reach places that the marketing team never reach.
4. Businesses are paying
only for performance. They don’t need to pay affiliates who
sign up but don’t bring in leads. However they have to fire
weak marketers in the team.
5. Affiliates networks have
made it very easy for businesses to grow up and running with an
affiliate marketing system.
6. For businesses who
doesn’t want to sign up for third party affiliate network, they
can use tool like HasOffers to host their own affiliate system
7. When sales go down,
Their marketing cost also go down as they are only paying for
performance
8. Businesses have complete
freedom to stop an affiliate program after getting a critical
level of branding through the affiliates.
Why do people prefer
Affiliate marketing instead of working as a marketer?
If you know how to drive
traffic ; you know how to earn your freedom. A good marketer
never needs to work on a fixed salary. He will always charge for
performance.
If a business is not giving
you a good deal, you can stop promoting them and start promoting
their competition with just clicking on the button, no need to
go through the lengthy procedure of changing jobs.
The hand that gives the hand
that takes. Affiliates give customers business . They do not
take commission. Commission is a side effect of giving.
Being an affiliate means
that you own your own web Properties , Your Email List, Your
community and your own brand. You can eventually start your
products and services as you understand the economics of the
niche.
Why do people prefer
Affiliate Marketing?
When you are getting started you only need to invest your time,
not capital. There is no risk apart from investing your time. Once
you have created the right kind of content for affiliate
marketing, You will be able to drive traffic to your content
using freehand organic methods without having to spend money on
paid ads. Once you have made $1000 , be ready to invest
$500 back into the ads. Even if you make $500 back – You will
know what is working and what island that experience is enough
to get you comfortable to spend on ads in the future . With
efficiency you can improve ROI. You will end up becoming
an influencer in your niche by boosting your followers through
paid ads – funded by affiliate commissions . You don’t need to
rely on organic growth.
The top Affiliates
networks in the world:
CJ.com
Impact.com
clickBank.com
JVZoo
ShareASale
vCommission
Top Self Hosted Affiliate
Programs:
Amazon
WPX Hosting
A2Hosting
ClickFunnels
Hostinger
ConvertKit
Shopify
An Affiliate Marketers
Mindset :
Do not treat affiliate
marketing as a job. Trat its an investment. Time , Energy and
money.
An investor doesn’t expect
all his investment to produce returns. Similarly, all your
articles might not produce good returns. 20 % of the content you
create will give you 80% of the income. If you do not have money
to invest, Invest your time.
If you want guaranteed
income then find a job or do digital freelancing when you are
getting started . Start investing some extra income into
affiliate marketing . You can also get a freelance content
writer and start investing on the side.
Affiliate marketing helps
you to understand your target market. This will help you launch
your own products and services in the future to the same niche.
Don’t just be a promoter of
a product; build your web properties. Your asset is your list
and your community build around the content. Your asset should
be able to promote any affiliate product in the niche.
Have a genuine desire to
help people with their problems. Give them product
recommendations. Promote only the products that you might buy
yourself.
Though reviews are the best
way to promote , You can build a list, Create community, share
links on your group, Do webinars and share those links on the
chatbox. You just need to reach people, how you them doesn’t
matter.
Once you make mony do not
use it for personal expenses. Reinvest it into growth. Spend
money on design, content and traffic. It will create a
compounding effect.
Affiliate Marketing
Models:
CPC: Cost per click-The advertisers pay you for
every click. Not very likely because of the fraud and lack of
performance tracking.
CPL:Cost per lead-The advertisers pay you for
every lead that you generate . Also less likely because of the
possibilities of the fraud and advertiser doesn’t make revenue
from the lead.
CPI: Cost per install-You get a commission
whenever you get the advertisers app installed.
CPA/CPS: Cost per action /Sale–The advertisers
pay you every time when a sale happens that generates revenue
for the advertisers.
Recurring Commission:You Sell the product once
whenever the customer receives the product, You get commission.
This is one of the best models but most of the people don’t take
it seriously because there is no instant commission . This is
long term.
The tools required for
affiliate marketing:
Community tools:Facebook
groups, Telegram Groups,
Keyword research : Aherefs/
SEMrush
Link tracking and Link
Shortening tools: Shorten /Tiny
A WordPress blog with web
hosting ,Themes, Plugins.
A landing page to collect
emails with lead magnet
Email list with email
marketing tools
Content creation tools and
resources
Blogging for Affiliate
Marketing:
Choose a niche and register
a domain. You don’t need to think much about it when you are
getting started . It’s more important to be getting started than
doing it perfectly.
If you have absolutely no
idea what niche to choose , Start a generic review website like
reviewtoday.com – Writing reviews of the product is the best way
to generate affiliate sales
Get a hosting account with
hostinger, WPX hosting or blue host. Install wordpress blog and
publish your review article.
Drive traffic to this page
via social media and small paid ads campaigns. Do not hesitate
to invest a small amount of money in ads . Even if the first
campaign is going to loss it is fine because you need to see
affiliate commission to build confidence.
Publish the first article
and make the first commission before you do anything.
You can write review
articles based on the online research that you do. It’s not
required that you have to have used or tried the product
yourself. The research that you do is of the same value in
itself.
Embed customers testimonials
and help readers to make the decision to buy the same. Drop
affiliate link throughout the article. Link images with
affiliate links as well.
Compare the product with
other products and write pros and cons of the product in
comparison to the competing product. Do the same review of the
competing product. Repurpose your content as much as possible.
Create the articles in the
form of videos using slideshows, upload them on youtube and also
embed it back to the blogpost. This will help to blog rank
better.
Creating the right
content for affiliate websites:
Do not publish the content
that will attract people who have no interest in buying
Always ask the question; “
will this be read by people who are planning to buy ?
Top 3 major types of content
for affiliate marketing : Top 10 Posts, Review Posts, and
product comparison Posts.
The brands are not using
your help to get branding and sales, You are using brands’
efforts to attract buyers and make final decisions before they
buy the product.
Use google auto suggest to
find out the alternative for each product. Just type in “Product
name vs ……..” and you will get to know the top alternatives for
the product.
Driving traffic to Blog:
When you are getting started
, You can drive the initial traffic through social media and
back linking through blog commenting and manual invitation. This
will work until you get the 5-10 sales.
Optimise blog for Search
traffic, SEO will always be one of the major sources of traffic
of blog.
Drive traffic to your blog
through your blog pages via paid ads and google Dynamic search
ads.
Build an email list using
lead magnet and drive traffic back to your blog.
Publish video reviews of the
product. Get youtube traffic.
URL management for
affiliate links:
When you are just getting
started , It’s easy to manage the affiliate links as there are
not many links to be managed at the same time.
Within a few weeks it can
become confusing to manage 100s of links.
Never promote the affiliate
links URLs directly. The link looks ugly and it’s not
recommended to show it to your audience. Mask it with a URL
shorten.
