Are you dreaming of making money without producing your own products or investing lots of bucks in a business?
Starting an affiliate marketing business could be a great way to do so!
Yes, you just need to promote products or services of any brand or company to earn a commission on each sale made through your promoted links.
But the question is that, how to start an affiliate marketing business?
In the first quarter of 2024, I worked on an affiliate project for our company and learned a lot of things that I am passionate about sharing with our readers, specifically those who are interested in starting an affiliate marketing business.
I have tried to cover almost everything you need to know about how to start an affiliate marketing business, and it could be a great starting point for you.
Let’s Get Started!
Affiliate Marketing – An Intro
Affiliate marketing is a process of promoting different brands’ products or services to increase sales and get a commission on each conversion.
This means that when an individual or a business markets a brand using affiliate links, they will get a commission on each sale. Therefore, it could be the best side hustle for you to make money online.
How Does the Affiliate Marketing Model Work?
An individual interested in becoming an affiliate of a company signs up with the company or brand, often through an affiliate network. Once the application is accepted, the affiliate will be given a unique tracking link to track sales and get paid for their performance.
Some of the key players in the affiliate marketing ecosystem:
- Merchant – A business that wishes to promote its product or service
- Affiliate – An individual or business that promotes a merchant’s product or service
- Affiliate Network – A platform that connects affiliates and merchants
- Customer – A consumer who purchases through an affiliate link
How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Business – Simple Steps
1-Choose Your Niche
Choosing the correct niche is important in affiliate marketing. There are three main factors to consider when choosing your niche:
Profitability
Profitability is the most crucial among the three. Imagine you are a single mum who loves cooking and you are promoting budget-friendly kitchen products. It is a more profitable niche because you have a wide audience who can afford to purchase the products you recommend.
However, if you are promoting a robotic lawn mower that costs thousands, you are unlikely to make any sales. Our team member Michal has written about the Best Profitable Blog Niche Ideas you can consider to make a wise decision.
Competition
Competition is one of the most important factors to be concerned with. The reason behind this is that you shouldn’t improve without the insights of your competitors. Google will decide which website will stay longer on the first page depending on its domain authority. This means you won’t stay longer on the SERPs because of the highly competitive world.
Therefore, you need to conduct thorough competitor research before getting choosing the niche to rank higher in the SERPs. In this way, you will be able to generate a highly dedicated audience to enhance your marketing efforts.
Expertise and Interest
Although your expertise and interest are important, they are not the most crucial factors. Your expertise helps build trust and credibility; for example, if you are a doctor who promotes supplements, people are more likely to purchase the products you promote than a random guy on social media who tells his audience to buy Vitamin D supplements.
Your interest makes it easier for you to create content. Using the example above, you have tried different kitchen products, and you don’t have to do more research because you know which is the best.
2- Find Affiliate Programs
Once you’ve chosen your niche, start searching for relevant affiliate programs. Choose affiliate programs that provide good commissions and create content or articles to promote those products. However, make sure that your recommendations are genuine and that you are not recommending them just for the high commissions.
Some popular platforms include:
Amazon Associates: You can choose any of Amazon’s products to promote and earn a commission. Amazon is one of the most popular affiliate programs with a wide range of products anyone can promote for handsom commissions.
Commission Junction (CJ Affiliate): It is a large network with various affiliate programs you can choose according to your niche or interests.
ShareASale: It is another popular affiliate network with lots of products and brands you can consider to start and grow your affiliate marketing business.
ClickBank: This platform particularly focuses on digital products like ebooks and online courses.
Direct Programs: Contact companies in your niche directly to check if they have any affiliate programs you can work with. For Instance, if you are running an SEO blog, you can contact with a web hosting provider, website builder tools or SEO tools company to promote their offerings to earn a commission.
3- Create High-Quality Content
Content is the lifeblood of affiliate marketing. It is that which entices the audience, builds credibility and ensures that your customer gets converted. Consider the following tips to create quality content for promoting affiliate links:
Do Keyword Research: Typing the relevant keywords in tools like Google Keyword Planner will help you find new keywords that your target audience searches. By incorporating these keywords into your content, you can improve your search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic.
Original and Informative Content: Whether you are writing blog posts, step by step guides or making product review videos, quality must be your top priority. Make your blog posts informative and videos interesting to hook your audience and keep them engaged.
SEO Optimization: When publishing a blog post or uploading a video to a YouTube channel, always use the focus keywords wisely to increase your online visibility. Focus on YouTube SEO basics for videos and on-page SEO for blog posts.
Call to Action: The final thing that you should never forget is to place a strong CTA at the end of your content. Such a call-to-action could be a link to your affiliate product, the signup page for your email list, or asking for shares across your social platforms.
4- Promoting Your Content On Different Platforms
There are several digital marketing techniques available to promote your affiliate content ethically and effectively to increase your affiliate sales:
Blogging
If you enjoy writing articles and building and maintaining websites, then blogging might be suitable for you. An article has the potential to generate ongoing income even after a few years if it continues to rank.
However, blogging is more challenging as you need to learn about SEO (search engine optimization), build your websites, and increase your DR (domain authority). If you are new to blogging, must read our guide on How to Start a Blog and Make Money with It.
Social Media
Social media is one of the best ways to promote your affiliate links or content. Features like Instagram sales posts help you get more eyeballs on your content and generate more sales.
Moreover, you can promote your blog posts, videos and other visuals on Most Popular Social Media Platforms to attract more users and convert them into sales.
Email Marketing
You can also create and send newsletters with valuable content and affiliate links to encourage users to make purchases using your links. However, you need a proper email marketing strategy and essential email marketing tools to reach a broader audience and generate more sales.
Paid Advertising
Consider using platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads to reach the target audience to increase sales. Hence, it could be expensive if you have a low budget at the start.
Influencer Marketing
Partnering with popular influencers in your niche to promote your affiliate links is also a great idea to grow your affiliate marketing business and boost sales. Just like paid advertising, influencer marketing may also need some specific budget to get started.
5- Tracking Your Performance
Once you have all done effectively, it is time to track your performance. You can use different analytics tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, other other third-party analytics tools available in the marketing to track your traffic, clicks, conversions and commissions. This information and insights will help you optimize your affiliate marketing strategies and efforts for better outcomes.
Bonus Tips for Affiliate Marketing Business Success
- If you want to survive and thrive in this competitive affiliate marketing landscape, you need to stay consistent with your content creation and promotion.
- Building a successful affiliate marketing business takes effort and time. So, do your best and wait for the desired outcomes. Affiliate marketing businesses don’t grow overnight!
- You must stay updated on industry trends and best practices so you can try and experience new things to achieve your affiliate marketing goals.
- Connect with other affiliates and industry professionals to learn new things and grow your network for more traffic.
- Keep trying different content and marketing strategies and see what works best for you and where you can make improvements.
The Closing Note
Affiliate marketing is such an exciting business, which turns you into a part-time marketing officer. A person who gets paid indirectly and survives easily in the world of business. However, you must have great patience and dedication to work hard.
In the start, it is really difficult to generate commissions, but with time, you will get it as a highly-paying job. Therefore, you need to have dedication to complete the task easily for better outcomes.