Master Affiliate Marketing: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Earning Online

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a technique where an advertiser pays a website, known as the affiliate, a commission in exchange for generating leads through the promotional activities of the website. Affiliate marketing is based on the performance of the affiliate, who is rewarded each time a visitor takes an engaging action after interacting with a promotional piece of content.

The 4 Elements of Affiliate Marketing:

• Affiliates: These are the promoters of the product who receive the commission.

• Advertisers: These are the creators of the product whose goal is to sell.

• Networks: Specialized networks can manage the affiliates.

• Consumers: These are the end-users of the product.

Affiliate Marketing Cycle

Unlike affiliates, product creators, and consumers, who are the three main pillars of any affiliate program, networks are not essential to this marketing model.

Who Are the Affiliates?

Affiliates, or publishers, can be individuals or businesses. They are typically bloggers or content creators operating in the same industry as the product or service creators they are promoting. They use content like blog articles, videos, or other resources to promote these products.

They can also promote their own content to generate qualified leads through advertising, SEO traffic, or email lists.

When one of their visitors takes an action that turns them into a lead or customer, the affiliate receives a commission, which is determined by the terms outlined in their affiliate contract.

Who Are the Advertisers?

Also known as product creators or merchants, advertisers are the ones who develop the product or service being promoted by others, in exchange for a reward in the form of a share or commission.

For example, it might be a company offering a commission to affiliates when they bring customers to make a purchase on their platform, or a blogger offering an affiliate program via their podcast.

Advertisers can be solo entrepreneurs or large businesses, and their only obligation is to pay affiliates who help them generate transactions.

Advertisers are not always the creators of the product, as is the case with the Amazon Partner Network.

What Are Affiliate Networks?

Affiliate networks serve as intermediaries between advertisers and affiliates. While merchants or product creators do not always use them, these networks are helpful in establishing trust between both parties in the collaboration.

They manage the relationships between advertisers and affiliates and offer independent control and verification structures, which are essential for reducing fraud rates. ClickBank and ShareASale are two of the most popular networks.

Some advertisers use networks because they lack the time or resources to handle tracking, management, and reporting for their affiliates. With a broad selection of affiliates, networks also help them expand collaborations.

Who Are the Consumers?

Consumers, or customers, are the visitors who take an action, such as making a purchase or submitting a form, which allows affiliates to earn their commission.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing creates a win-win relationship between the advertiser and the affiliate. The advertiser is exposed to a larger audience thanks to the affiliate, and the affiliate generates revenue based on the performance of their affiliate link. The best affiliate training can help you master the skills needed to succeed in this field.

Since affiliate marketing is a performance-based system, the affiliate only receives a commission when a visitor performs an action that moves them along the buyer’s journey—whether it’s a click, form submission, or purchase.

Types of Affiliate Programs

Here are the most common affiliate program models:

• Pay Per Click (PPC)
  The affiliate is paid for each click generated, whether or not the click results in a lead or sale. This model is rarely used because only the advertiser takes the risk.

• Pay Per Lead (PPL)
  The affiliate is paid for each lead generated, whether it's a form submission, free trial signup, or a pre-sale. The risk is shared fairly between the advertiser and the affiliate.

• Pay Per Sale (PPS)
  The affiliate is paid for each sale generated. This is the most common model, as only the affiliate takes the risk. It’s one of the various cost-per-action marketing strategies.

Types of Affiliates

To become an affiliate, you must first sign up for an affiliate program, such as the Amazon Program. After registration, you’ll receive an affiliate link containing a unique ID to use in your promotional content.

Each time a visitor clicks on this affiliate link, a cookie is placed in their browser to track their actions. When they perform an action that qualifies according to the affiliate agreement, the advertiser can register it and attribute the commission to the affiliate.

There are different compensation structures depending on the terms of the affiliate contract. Commissions may be paid on a monthly or weekly basis or based on the leads or sales the affiliate helps generate.

It is important to pay close attention to the compensation structure of your affiliate program, as it directly impacts the goals you’re aiming to achieve.

Cost and Revenue in Affiliate Marketing

Cost of Participation

Joining an affiliate program typically does not involve any entry fees, but depending on how you promote a product, the affiliate will incur variable costs.

Affiliate marketing is often associated with earning a commission for promoting another person's or company’s products.

The mechanics may seem simple at first: find a product you like, promote it, and earn a commission for each sale. However, there are subtleties to understand.

For starters, make sure the compensation model set up by the advertiser (whether it's a commission per sale, per lead, or a one-time payment) aligns with your goals.

Depending on the pricing structure, these objectives may influence your choice of product, the type of promotion you develop, and the time and resources you allocate.

For example, if you choose to promote content via paid ads, you must consider the costs incurred to ensure that the commissions you earn are profitable.

Similarly, if you own a blog or website, you will incur hosting fees, usually in the form of a fixed fee for all sales you generate. It’s crucial to prepare your marketing plan to determine how much to invest and how to proceed.

Affiliate Marketing Earnings

After considering the costs involved, it's natural to wonder how much an affiliate working full-time in this field can earn.

Affiliate earnings should be viewed in terms of profits generated, not just revenue. The amounts affiliates receive represent only one part of the affiliate program.

For example, an affiliate earning €5,000 per day could be worse off than one earning only €500 but having no expenses, if the former spends most of their earnings on paid promotional materials.

Before joining an affiliate program, it’s essential to align your expectations with the revenue you’re likely to earn. This way, you can target the right industry or niche while developing an appropriate working method.

If you focus on paid ads, such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads, the amount invested is just as important as the amount earned.

How to Choose Your Affiliate Program?

Two misconceptions are often spread about affiliate marketing. This article helps clarify the truth about choosing an affiliate program.

• Affiliate marketing is outdated.
  Whether it’s SEO, advertising, or mobile marketing, one aspect of the online marketing world seems doomed to obsolescence each year. However, if an activity withstands the test of time and continues to prove itself, it likely has long-term potential. This longevity comes from the ability to evolve, and affiliate marketing is no exception. Originally focused on quick gains, affiliate marketing has now become a model that requires the development of trust-based relationships to be effective. This necessitates a more strategic approach.

• Affiliate marketing is easy to set up.
  Affiliate marketing requires time and effort to become profitable. It involves choosing a relevant product to promote, making a smart collaboration choice, building trust-based relationships, and creating fresh content regularly. While it may seem easy to set up, affiliate marketing relies on strategic decisions to be efficient.

The two basic rules of affiliate marketing are:

1. As an affiliate, you should only promote products you know extremely well and that you are sure offer value to end-users.

2. Do not directly tell a user to buy a product, but recommend it based on your own experience and what it helped you achieve.

To promote relevant products, consider the following three elements:

• Audience: Does the product meet their needs, and will they appreciate you promoting it?

• Quality and value of the product: Would you recommend it to your friends?

• Profitability: Does the selected product have a competitive conversion rate, and is it likely to generate sufficient revenue?

Your success in affiliate marketing will depend on understanding these fundamental principles and building an authentic brand.

3 Examples of Affiliate Platforms

There are numerous affiliate platforms available to help you implement your program as an advertiser. Here are three essential affiliate platforms:

Affilae

Affilae is a platform that doesn’t require installation fees and doesn’t take any commissions. The subscription is month-to-month, costing €69.

In practice, Affilae provides tracking links without redirection to increase inbound links or backlinks integrated into your affiliate program. In terms of SEO, each of these links is viewed as positive by search engines.

This platform prioritizes independent professionals who wish to develop their relationships with affiliate members. However, note that Affilae does not have a marketplace and does not manage the administrative side for you, but it has a strong reputation and is highly trusted by users.

Rakuten Advertising

Rakuten Advertising is a leader in affiliate marketing. This platform is recognized for progressively optimizing affiliate campaigns, benefiting both affiliates and advertisers.

The rotating campaign system, a key feature of Rakuten, adds significant value. It also helps advertisers verify the quality of content created by affiliates, contributing to ongoing performance monitoring.

However, Rakuten’s payment system makes it difficult for affiliates to anticipate commission payments, and its affiliate network is smaller than its competitors’.

ShareASale

ShareASale is another platform with a highly user-friendly interface, making it easy to track affiliate campaign statistics and performance. It provides data such as average sale amounts and earnings per click.

However, there are many other affiliate platforms, including Awin, DaisyCon, TradeDoubler, Affilinet, Webgains, and Amazon.