Nowadays, it can be difficult to get ahead and separate yourself from the pack. Consumers like making informed and smart decisions when shopping for products or services, which is why developing a strong digital marketing strategy is important. The pool of people that use the internet for most of their shopping is constantly growing, which means looking into tried and true online marketing strategies is key – and that’s where learning about the basics of affiliate marketing comes in.

1. What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. It’s an easy and affordable way to increase exposure and gain new customers while also encouraging loyalty and repeat purchases. With affiliate programs, businesses get the best of both worlds: a range of promotional options designed to provide a profitable stream of revenue, while affiliates get the benefit of increased exposure. There are different types of programs you could go for. Amongst the more popular choices is the high ticket affiliate program which enables you to earn more with fewer sales.  While affiliate programs can be operated independently by the merchant directly (from home, for example) it’s also possible to team up with an affiliate program to take advantage of all of the services, software, and support they have to offer.

Merchants with established affiliate programs will often use a third party to manage their program – this is called an affiliate network. Affiliate networks are companies that specialize in managing referral fees for multitudes of different merchant products through one interface. Reading a wealthy affiliate training program review might give you some better information on how it all really works.

2. Types Of Affiliate Marketing

There are three main subtypes of this strategy: unattached, related, and involved affiliate marketing. The unattached type is the basic pay-per-click strategy where the affiliate has no presence or authority over what they’re promoting. They don’t have any contact with the consumer in this case either. Instead, they simply put an affiliate link on a platform and earn a commission every time a customer clicks on it.  With related affiliate marketing, the affiliate promotes products that are related to their niche but that they don’t actually use. It can be done through their blog post, a podcast, or social media. Finally, involved affiliate marketing is a type where the products that are being marketed aren’t only related to the niche the affiliate is working in, but they also use the products themselves and can honestly recommend them to their audience. For a lot of product creators, related and involved affiliate marketing strategies seem to be a little more attractive because they provide a great context for the product placement.

3. The Product Creator’s Role

The merchant or product creator has a lot to gain from affiliate marketing. How much the merchant gets from the sale will depend on their arrangement with the affiliate, but whatever is decided on, everyone benefits! Businesses can get a commission on sales placed through another party’s website while the affiliate makes money whenever they sell something. Merchants have a range of affiliate options they can choose from, depending on what they have in stock and how easy it would be to add links. For example, if a merchant were selling a physical product, a text link is all that’s needed in quite a lot of cases. However, when selling digital products such as apps or software programs, using an affiliate or tracking link is essential to generating revenue. Tracking links can also be used if a product creator wants their affiliates to generate at least some leads before making an initial sale.

4. The Affiliate’s Role

An affiliate is someone who makes money by promoting another business’ products and services – in this case, the merchants. It’s possible to become an affiliate with almost any business, but obviously, the more suitable the product is to your blog or website niche, the better.  Just like other businesses, there’s a wide range of affiliate programs to choose from and it’s up to you which ones you should take part in. To find out if a business has an affiliate program, you can do a quick search online to find out if they’re affiliated with any major affiliate networks. There are many advantages to earning an affiliate income – you get passive income, you can work from home, have flexible hours, and you have a lot of control over your business. Once you start earning from affiliate marketing, it’s hard to stop since the income is continuous as long as there are customers willing to buy the products through your site.

Affiliate marketing is one of the tried and true strategies that are still extremely effective, despite what many people may think. The best part about it is that anyone can do it! All you have to do is join an affiliate program, promote their products through your online presence – whether it’s a blog or social media accounts – and then wait for the sales to come in.