Affiliate marketing is a new way to earn money online. In this Beginner Guide to Affiliate Marketing, almost anyone with a website or blog can start an affiliate program and work with product companies. In this way, they can promote products and earn commissions on their customers’ products.
Affiliate marketing lets you share a product or service with your friends, who will then purchase it. You can then make money on the sales success of these products.
Here’s the simplified 5 step process for affiliate marketing:
- Find products to promote.
- Search for a product name. If it’s listed on Amazon, don’t hesitate to promote it.
- Join their affiliate program.
- Obtain a unique link that enables the merchant to track the customers who purchased through you.
- If you make a sale, you earn a commission.
As a beginner in the industry, this post will help you get started. You’ll learn how to set up your first commission, how much it costs, and some other basics.
Table of Contents
ToggleHow Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
There are many different ways to continue tracking your affiliate traffic. One of these methods is special tracking links to link back to the original article.
The most usual and basic type of tracking is using a cookie.
When you use affiliate links in your content, the merchant can collect how many people you refer and their purchase history. This is a powerful marketing strategy for ensuring that people who read your content are also loyal customers.
There are many advanced methods based on the email used or IP address, but we won’t get into those here. We’ll focus on more beginner-friendly methods when it comes to an understanding of what users’ intent might be.
Here are eight steps to make your blog the perfect place to start affiliate marketing.
- Create a new blog.
- Pick an Industry using the Niche within Niche (NWN) method.
- Find niche-related products that you can review.
- Register for the Amazon Associates Program.
- Research programs for the other affiliate products you’re going to review.
- Create helpful resource pages, review posts, tutorials, or emails, and embed your affiliate link.
- Get the page optimized and track your Google rankings.
- Rinse and Repeat!
How to Earn Your First Dollar through Affiliate Marketing?
There are so many trends in affiliate marketing right now, and if you’re just starting, it can be hard to identify which path to take. But when you have a goal of making money quickly, consider this method. You can make 100 bucks in a short amount of time!
One of the things I cherish about this monetization type is that beginners can easily jump into affiliate marketing (even without a bunch of technical knowledge).
Then as your site grows, you can begin to learn more advanced marketing strategies.
How Much Can You Make as an Affiliate Marketer?
While numbers vary, making money with this method is possible for anyone willing to test it out and stick with it.
You’ll be able to increase profits as your website traffic increases and ultimately as you learn new skills. You would also want to invest in email marketing, search engine optimization, and web design.
Although there are many different types of promotions, you can estimate what your earning potential will be. In this post, you’ll learn more about the different types of promotions and how much each type of promotion will pay.
How Can You Become an Affiliate Marketer?
There are so many affiliate programs online today, but you’re not going to have trouble finding one that agrees with your interests. When you find a product that resonates with your personality, let the company know and inquire about their affiliate program.
Before promoting them, it takes time to build up trust and good relationships with someone.
Pay close attention to the relevance of your product. Your business needs to know whether or not a product is interesting and valuable for your audience.
It might not be a brilliant idea to advertise dumbbells on Location Rebel. Location Rebel doesn’t want its members to know much information about equipment, especially visiting the website.
It’ll make more sense for me to promote Bluehost. This is a famous hosting company that most readers use or have considered using.
Questions to Ask Before Starting an Affiliate Campaign
When deciding what to promote, I’ll always ask myself these questions:
- Have I used this product?
- Will the vast majority of my prospects benefit from buying this product?
- Is the purchasing process easy?
- Is the affiliate commission rate reasonable?
If your simple answer to all of these questions is yes, it might be a good idea for you to promote the role to others.
Action Item: Create a list of products where you can entice your blog community to use a particular product that aids in your business’s success. It’s always best practice to tap into other people’s networks, buy up any products they may be using, and then present them as your own.
Remember, you can mention complementary products on your list too. If you write about travel, mention luggage, headphones, backpacks, or clothing.
Get Started with Affiliate Marketing: Information Products vs. Physical Products vs. Services
Now that you know more about what products might be most appropriate for your business, it’s time to decide which are best for your audience.
You can promote three different types of affiliate products:
- Physical Products
- Information Products
- Services
How to Market Physical Products
Amazon is the most popular online selling platform these days. It’s where most people start their product search and spend time comparing different versions of a particular product that they are interested in.
Amazon has a massive affiliate program that lets you earn from the sales of any product. You don’t need to spend anything to use this service, and when you sign up, there’s always a link waiting for you.
The cookies are recorded and collected when someone clicks on your Amazon’s affiliate link. When they buy anything with this cookie, you’ll both earn a small commission.
The commission rate structure on physical products has been updated due to changes in the industry. Payment is still made every week, but revenue reporting is now once a month. Then in April of 2020, they made some drastic changes again to commission rates.
So you can earn an average of 4%-10% on stuff (like luxury and fashion) and 1% on video games.
How to Register for Amazon’s Partner Program
Amazon’s affiliate program is one of the best ways to start earning some income from your blog.
Why?
Amazon is the #1 online shopping destination, and most people are familiar with it. More importantly, your readers will be able to find what they’re looking for and contact you quickly.
You can register and get links immediately from the Amazon Affiliate program.
How to Launch Affiliate Marketing as a Newbie Blogger
If you are finding affiliate programs for specific companies, I suggest FlexOffers. There are various ways to make money, but researching them before starting can help you save time and effort in the future.
Quick Tips on Promoting Physical Products
If you want to promote physical products, Amazon might not be the best option for you. Product discovery on Amazon is competitive, and it might get harder and harder over time to compete with the big brands. Investing in a website might be worth it if your niche is specific or if this is your primary source of revenue.
Amazon gives a unique 24-hour cookie. It implies that if someone clicks your link and then buys anything anytime within the next day, you get the commission.
This short period is why it’s vital to compare the offer from more than one company. Be sure to choose an affiliate program that offers as many benefits and opportunities as possible. This makes it much easier to generate sales.
Tips to Promote Information Products
Information products are digital products that are sold online. They can be anything from eBooks to webinars and digital courses.
To market your information products, you need to have a solid strategy. You also need to know what your target audience wants and needs.
Here are some tips that you can use to promote your information products:
- Promote your product on social media. This is one of the greatest ways to gain exposure for your product.
- Offer a bonus with every purchase of your product. This will encourage customers to buy more from you and help boost sales figures.
- Create an email list for people who want updates on new releases and promotions from your company.
- Promote your product on social media.
- Create content for a blog about your product.
- Use email marketing to send out newsletters about your product.
- Offer a discount for those who register for a newsletter or webinar.
How to Decide What Information Products to Promote
The key to successful promotion is getting to understand your audience and what they need. You should also create a product that meets their needs or at least provide them with a solution.
The key to selecting what information products to promote is to be aware of your audience and the competition.
When you are looking at your company’s website, you should identify who is your target audience. If it’s a B2B business, then you should have a clear understanding of the industry and the competitors in that space.
If it’s a B2C business, you should have an idea of what type of person might be interested in buying from you.
Once you know your target audience, look at the competition and see who they’re marketing towards. If they’re marketing towards millennials, then it means that they’re targeting young people with disposable income and experience in technology. The next step is to use this information to create content.
The information products you promote should be the ones you believe will make the most money. However, it is also essential to consider the cost of promoting your product.
Affiliate Marketing for Service Products
When you’re researching new courses or products, it’s helpful to find out what affiliate programs are available.
If the product has got more positive feedback, you may want to find out whether an affiliate program is available. What commission structure does the company offer?
Services are straightforward to sell because if I personally love and use them; there’s a high chance you will too.
There are lots of cool things about services. Sometimes, they offer recurring commissions. For example, people typically make at least 20% a month every time someone signs up for Sumo or Visual Website Optimizer.
With time that can add up to be a nice extra bit of income each month – and you’re only spending 20 minutes to 4 hours a day doing it.
Consider the benefits to offer when promoting your products or services on your site. You’ll likely earn commissions between 15 and 30% of what you sell – sometimes higher or lower depending on what it is.
Affiliate Programs for Digital Services
If you have a website that discusses online marketing, blogging, or business, you have plenty of ways to earn money as an affiliate. Depending on what type of service your website is about and its niche, there are different programs available that could fit your bill.
Listed below are some of my favorite e-commerce affiliate programs, so’s you can get an idea of what affiliate programs entail and start to understand what might work for your site.
BeRush – SEMrush is an SEO research tool used by most companies whether or not they are serious about SEO. All other tools are compared to an older version of this so that the affiliate program will be a massive help for you. Plus, you get a recurring fee that pays out 40% of your sales!
Bluehost – Bluehost is my favorite web host for new bloggers. They also offer generous commissions of $65 per referral you send them. Their affiliate managers are fantastic, and many people have had great results with their service.
Sumo – They offer some of the best affiliate promos I’ve ever seen, and their affiliate manager, Karol, is always available to assist people.
Conclusion – Beginner Guide to Affiliate Marketing
You should consider how much time and effort will be needed to promote your product. If you want to promote a product that requires a lot of research and planning, it’ll take more time and energy than if you were selling something that can be promoted with just a few words or pictures.
Affiliate marketing is a long-term game. Like with anybody seeking to get rich quickly, sadly, you find the marketer falls short more often.
Remember that constant income and success require effort and time. Consider the early stages, act, and continue to develop your skills. Only then can you position yourself comfortably for huge conversions toward the future.
To help you get started on the right track, you can join the starter program at Wealthy Affiliate for $0. If you don’t like it come back here to my website and yell at me for whatever reason (I’m serious)
Oh yeah, did I mention your starter membership was free?
As soon as you join I will make sure that I get back to you within the first hour of you signing up, that’s a promise I make to you.
Your promise to me in return is that when you do join, that the first thing you will do is set up your account. It is the most simple process on the internet and you will be walked through it step by step upon joining Wealthy Affiliate.
Join Wealthy Affiliate, $0 Starter Membership Here!
Can I Make Money – Claim Your Bonus…
When you join your FREE Starter Account, I am going to offer you a few special bonuses if you decide to become a Premium member within the first 7-days (including a 59% discount). Simply watch the video below to see ow you can do this.
When you create your account at Wealthy Affiliate, I will personally be contacting you on your very own profile to say Gday and some more great information about WA, how you can get personal help from me (For FREE) along the way, and how you can claim the bonuses.
Trust me when I say this, it will be some AWESOME stuff (small hint, it will include my experience and mentorship)
You really won’t have any idea of everything you have been missing out on until you step inside of the Wealthy Affiliate community.
Do you have an opinion to share or a question to ask?
If yes, please leave a comment below.
Mark CEO & Founder of The Retired Affiliates
11 responses to “Beginner Guide to Affiliate Marketing in 2022”
Mark, what a great explanation and guide for getting started with affiliate marketing. Thank you for putting it together.
This provides a great explanation of the different types of affiliate marketing products/services available for newbie just getting started.
I feel like everyone defaults to using the Amazon affiliate program, but it is not necessarily the best program out there, and certainly not the most lucrative.
Any suggestions for affiliate marketers who promote affiliate products, as well as their own?
Thanks for suggesting semrush, as well. I will be checking that out now.
Thanks again!
Hey Ashley,
Yes Amazon used to be ok, and look if you are only just getting started with Affiliate Marketing its not a bad place to start, simply because being accepted is very easy (Especially for a new site) and you have got just about every product available all in the one place.
With that being said the commissions are terrible.
What affiliate products are you looking at Ashley? And what are your own products?
Thank you for sharing this very informative post. I love amazon and I am interested in working with them, however they do not work with people from my county. How long should it take to begin getting commissions? I am a member of wealthy affiliate and the training is amazing.
Hi Diana,
Yes I agree Wealthy Affiliate is an amazing program with some awesome members.
What Niche are you looking at?
Once I know this I can give you more of an idea and possibly recommend affiliates other than Amazon.
Mark
I’m in the affiliate circuit for a little while now, and in the start everything seems so overwhelming.
That is why it is good people like you write these posts, so beginners have a clue what to do, what to expect, and the most important of all, where to start an account!
There are scam sites out there, and it is easy to make the wrong mistake!
So thanks a lot of sharing it!
By the way, how much success you have already with affiliate marketing?
Thanks Emmanuel. Affiliate Marketing has definitely bought me some great lifestyle changes since leaving the 9-5 grind that’s for sure.
Thanks for the helpful article that describes what affiliate marketing is – and also for tailoring the article to someone who is just beginning. It’s true that all the steps are fairly simple, but it’s helpful to have it all laid out in one place to get a good understanding of the things to keep in mind as you start out! Well done!
Thanks Aly.
Thank you for this guide about affiliate marketing. Now I can have realistic expectations about how much I can earn with this model. I have seen some hyped platforms promising overnight riches, but that is not true. I also like that we can sell physical goods. I will take this route!
Thank you for sharing the several dimension of making money with affiliate marketing. It is actually a sure way of making money online. The common challenge is not finding the right platform or training to start with. Wealthy affiliate is a great platform to start with. Thank you for pointing out this strategic platform that is stuffed with training, tools and community to help with
Hi,
I am so glad you found this useful.
Wealthy Affiliate is an awesome platform to start your Affiliate Marketing journey, and is definitely geared toward beginners.
Mark