Intro to our part 2 of affiliate marketing questions
We have already covered the things that you need to know before you get into affiliate marketing, and now we will take the next step and go over commonly asked questions related to affiliate marketing. We have been going at it for almost 10 years now and tried to think back to questions that we wished we had asked before we got into the whole setup.
So here are the most common questions that we find ourselves answering once we tell people what we do around the dinner table or at parties. The follow up to ” What do you do ” is ” Ahhh I have heard of affiliate marketing before… is it…” So we will help you out and get you ready for all those questions.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a setup that is, at its core, a commission-based system. It is where a publisher ( or merchant ) will give a payout or commission of a sale for referrals that affiliates send to them.
In most cases, commissions are paid out when a sale is made. But this isn’t the only type of affiliate agreement that can be set up. Sometimes there will be payouts on installs of apps or trial sign-ups. There are so many different types of affiliate programs that it is worth checking out all the offers the networks can offer, as some suggestions will be unique to specific networks.
The nice thing about affiliate programs is that they’re free to join, and this will eliminate costs and allow you to see the offers the merchant is giving to the affiliates. You choose which products you decide to promote and how you will promote them. You are your boss and make the tough calls about who you decide you will work with.
Special thanks to the people at https://openai.com/ for the picture, as we wanted to know what their AI thought affiliate marketing looks like. Well to them it is some jumbled words, and arrows and AFE Marketing? Well maybe their AI will read our article and make waaaaaaaay better pics after they’re done!
How does affiliate marketing work?
Affiliate marketing pays you for completing an action on behalf of another company. Sometimes it is a sale; sometimes, it is a referral. But in all cases, the merchant will create an offer and pay you if you complete their request. Some merchants have rules as to how you can promote the proposal, while others don’t have any restrictions.
In most cases, the agreement’s goal is to process a sale. But some affiliate programs are set up to pay you for email submissions if the user installs an app or a wide variety of other actions that users can do.
The nice thing about affiliate programs is that they are almost always free to join. This means that you have the chance to login and see what their offer is. You can also check to see if they have different offers on different networks.
If you get into affiliate marketing and can make it work, there is a good chance that you will be able to use it as your primary source of income. Many people might start by putting their toes into affiliate marketing to make some extra cash, but once they see the potential, they dive right in.
An example of how affiliate marketing works
A customer sees an advertisement or a link with Purchase in your store/website.
The customer or site visitor clicks your affiliate link, which lets the tracking company know that you get the credit if there is a sale from that specific link click.
The customer purchases ( or whatever the affiliate setup is) with the merchant.
Once the affiliate network records the Purchase, it identifies that it came from your unique link, and your commission is paid.
What is a merchant?
In the last line of those steps, we see that the merchant pays out, but what does that mean in the affiliate marketing ecosystem?
When an affiliated action happens, a merchant pays a commission to a publisher ( or affiliate ) according to the conditions of the affiliate program. Usually, the companion doesn’t need to pay any fees for a joining fee, as the program’s hosting is done through an affiliate network that the merchant pays. The only actual cost that may be a cost for somebody running a blog to promote a merchant or a product could be the cost of employing that blogger.
What is an affiliate network?
An affiliate network is a mediator between the publisher (the affiliate) and the advertiser (a merchant). Merchants post their affiliate programs on an affiliate network, and publishers can search the web to find the affiliate programs they wish to promote. The affiliate network works on behalf of both sides of the interactions. They help create that relationship between the merchants and affiliates as they earn revenues based on the transactions. This is why it is great to meet your affiliate network reps, as they can tell you great programs to get into and ones to avoid.
How can you promote offers with pay-per-click, SEO, and media buying
Affiliate marketing is a type of online marketing in which a merchant rewards affiliates for each customer brought to the merchant’s website by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Affiliates can promote offers to potential customers, including pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and media buying.
PPC Affiliates
Pay-per-click allows affiliates to purchase ads targeting potential customers for the merchant’s products or services. These ads are displayed on search engines or websites frequented by the target audience, and the affiliate only pays when a potential customer clicks on the ad.
Affiliate marketing via SEO
Search engine optimization is another way to reach potential customers through organic search results. By optimizing their website and content for relevant keywords, affiliates can improve their chances of appearing in search results when potential customers are looking for information about the merchant’s products or services.
Media Buying affiliate advertising
Media buying refers to purchasing ad space on a website or other online platform to promote a product or service. This can be done through traditional advertising channels such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads or specialized networks such as those used by Amazon and other eCommerce platforms.
Media buying is a vital part of any affiliate marketing campaign, as it allows you to control where your ads are seen and by whom. By carefully targeting your audience and choosing the proper placement for your ads, you can maximize your chances of reaching potential customers and generating sales.
While media buying can be complex and time-consuming, it can also be gratifying if done correctly. With the right strategy in place, you can reach many potential customers at a relatively low cost, making it an effective way to grow your business.
How to get into affilaite marketing?
- Decide if you want to become an affiliate
Check out our guide to online marketing which is a great first step into figuring out what you want to do online.
- Learn about affiliate marketing
Keep reading our guides
- Start a campaign
Figure out your niche, offer, and traffic source
- Profit?
What does it mean to scale a campaign, and why does this matter in affiliate marketing?
When scaling a campaign, affiliate marketers want to increase the number of conversions they generate while maintaining or decreasing their cost per acquisition. This can be done by increasing traffic to their landing page through paid or organic means or improving their conversion rate.
Scaling a campaign is important in affiliate marketing because it allows affiliates to continue generating revenue while minimizing costs. It is also essential to scale campaigns to stay ahead of the competition and maintain a dominant position in the market.
So when looking at a product to promote, you want to see if it can scale. With a broader audience, that means that there are a lot of customers that can buy what you are promoting. If you select a specific product, you might have a high conversion rate when you get customers, but you might have a lot lower number of sales.
Affiliate marketing can be a full-time job, but it can also be a full time job. Generally speaking, as an affiliate marketer you decide how much time you want to devout to your marketing.
It’s never too late to start affiliate marketing! There are many successful affiliate marketers who started later in life and have had great success. It’s never too late to learn new skills and strategies, so don’t feel discouraged if you’re starting later than others.
One of the great things about affiliate marketing is that it can be done at your own pace. You can take your time to build up a passive income stream, or you can go all-in and try to make a full-time income from it. Either way, it’s possible to have success as an affiliate marketer at any age.
The most important thing is to just get started and see what works for you. There’s no need to rush – take your time, build your business slowly, and enjoy the process!
There is no guarantee that you will become a millionaire through affiliate marketing, but it is certainly possible. To increase your chances of success, be sure to choose quality products or services to promote, and work hard to drive traffic to your affiliate links. If you put in the effort, you can certainly make a lot of money through affiliate marketing.
Amazon is probably one of the biggest and easiest examples of an affiliate network. If they approve you as an affiliate then you will get a custom link to put on your site. When someone clicks through and makes a purchase you can make a commission.
What is the conversion rate in affiliate marketing?
A conversion rate is the number of people who perform an action divided into the number of people who had the chance to take that action. For example, if you made three sales out of 100 visitors, you would have a 3% conversion rate. In affiliate marketing, this desired action is usually to purchase, but it could also be a sign-up, download, or anything else that has value to the merchant. For more information relating to the terms and things you should read about, make sure you check out our 7 p’s of marketing post!
Merchants track conversions with unique tracking links that they give to their affiliates. When a visitor clicks one of these links, a cookie is placed on their computer indicating that they came from the affiliate’s site. If the visitor takes the desired action within a certain period (usually 30-60 days), the affiliate gets credit for the sale and earns a commission.
The conversion rate is, therefore, the number of sales or other desired actions divided by the number of visitors.
Conclusion to our FAQs related to affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is online marketing which basically pays you for doing things for other companies. It might be a sale, it might be an email submission or something else. At the end of the day you are getting paid to promote some aspect of another company
Affiliates can range from big companies like Amazon to small, niche players. So you have a massive variety of things that you can promote. We often find it more rewarding and exciting when promoting products we are interested in, so that is always something to keep in mind before starting a new campaign. When done right, affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money online, and it can be very profitable if done correctly. There are many different ways to do affiliate marketing and many kinds of products or services that can be promoted. To succeed at affiliate marketing, choosing the right products or services to promote and finding the right affiliate programs to join is crucial.
If we missed any of your questions please check this oldie, but a goodie, of a Q&A for affiliate marketing questions: