If you’ve spent any time on the Internet, odds are that you’ve encountered affiliate marketing without even knowing it! This type of marketing is especially prominent on social media platforms and within the blogging sphere. But how does affiliate marketing work, and why should you get into it? Stay tuned for everything you need to know about affiliate marketing and how to make it work for your business.
What Is Affiliate Marketing and How Does It Work?
Instead of giving a complicated and drawn-out definition of affiliate marketing, we’re going to make it as simple as possible. Essentially, whenever you sell something for someone else and receive a commission for it, that’s affiliate marketing. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, but it’s helpful to start with the basics.
Affiliate marketing involves a unique link that’s given to each affiliate to use and promote within their platform or channel. This link includes a file called a cookie that allows the original merchant to track where the sale is coming from. From there, the merchant can pay their affiliates the agreed-upon commission.
Let’s go over a real-world example so that you can see how affiliate marketing works in practice. Let’s say that Jane Doe is an avid hiker and adventurer. She has established a well-read blog about her hiking adventures around National Parks. You are a retailer that sells water bottles and hydration packs. You provide Jane Doe with a link to your newest hiking water bottle for her to feature on her blog. Every time someone from Jane’s blog purchases a water bottle from you based on that link, you pay her a commission. It’s that simple!
What Are the Benefits of Affiliate Marketing?
Now that you know a little bit more about affiliate marketing, you might be wondering what the whole point of it is. After all, why can’t you just sell your products on your website and leave it at that? Why should you have to partner with a bunch of different people and pay them for their trouble? As it turns out, there are real benefits to affiliate marketing that make it worthwhile.
Essentially, affiliate marketing benefits everyone involved. On one end, the seller benefits from increased brand and product visibility by partnering with affiliates. On the other end, the affiliate benefits by getting a commission. Finally, customers benefit from easily finding great products that are tailored to their lives and interests.
At the end of the day, affiliate marketing is a low-risk marketing tactic with low entry barriers. Anyone can utilize affiliate marketing no matter how small the business! You don’t need to spend a ton of money on costly and fancy ads on big websites. You also don’t have to worry that you’re wasting money without actually getting sales as a result of your efforts. Finally, you’re able to reach people you otherwise wouldn’t and not only benefit in terms of sales but also in terms of reputation as a result.
Different Types of Affiliate Marketing
We’ve already mentioned blogs, but did you know that there are several different types of affiliate marketing that you can explore? The Internet is a big place, so let’s explore some of the different ways you can use affiliate marketing to grow your brand and sales.
- Influencers: We’ve all heard of influencers, but did you know that they’re a form of affiliate marketing? This is because influencers have large followings that put them in the position to recommend products. However, the partnership needs to be mutually beneficial, which is where commissions come into play.
By entering into an affiliate marketing partnership with an influencer, you benefit by tapping into their network, and they benefit by getting commissions! It’s really a win-win situation that has turned influencing into a lucrative full-time job for those with large followings.
- Bloggers: As mentioned above, blogs are another platform where you can use affiliate marketing. Based on the blog topic, you can then promote related products that are likely to appeal to readers. In some cases, the blogger writes an entire review post about your product. In other cases, products are included more organically. In any case, this allows bloggers to essentially monetize their blog while allowing sellers increased access and visibility to readers who tend to trust and value the opinions of their favorite bloggers.
- Email lists: Email lists might seem like an out-of-date tactic compared to social media influencing, but they can still be useful for affiliate marketing. After all, people still check their email on a regular basis and use it to keep up-to-date with various businesses, events, platforms, etc. Sellers can take advantage of email lists and email newsletters from affiliates in order to promote their products.
How to Break Into Affiliate Marketing
Clearly, there’s no limit to using affiliate marketing to grow the reach of your business! Now that you’re sold on the concept, you’re probably wondering how exactly you can go about implementing it yourself and start benefiting from it. Here are some of the basic steps that you can take to break into affiliate marketing:
- The first thing you need to think about is your target customer. What platforms do they use? What types of content do they look for? Who do they follow and trust? When you focus on the customer first, you can ensure that you’re heading in the right direction and will end up converting sales from your efforts.
- The second thing you need to think about is your brand. What are your values? What are your goals? What can you afford to offer affiliates? From there, you can begin to chart your course within the field of affiliate marketing by coming up with a real strategy and identifying potential affiliates.
- The last thing you need to consider involves the last piece of the puzzle: the actual affiliates. How are you supposed to find them and then partner with them? As it turns out, it’s actually quite easy to do this if you know where to look. There are affiliate marketing programs out there that are specially designed to foster this type of partnership.
If you end up getting stuck in any step, you can always reach out to marketing experts like Greg Gillman for tailored expertise and guidance.
The Best Affiliate Marketing Programs for Beginners
If you do a Google search for the best affiliate marketing programs, you’re going to be overwhelmed by the results. So how can you possibly sort through all the results and find the right option for you? Here are some of the best affiliate marketing programs to consider:
- ClickBank
- 2checkout
- Amazon Associates
- ShareASale
- Awin
- Rakuten Marketing
- FlexOffers
- AvantLink
- RevenueWire
Final Thoughts on Affiliate Marketing
As you can see, affiliate marketing is a great tactic for beginners, thanks to low entry costs. That said, trying to navigate this arena on your own can be quite challenging if you don’t know what you’re doing. Thankfully, there are experts out there like Greg Gillman who can help you reach the right people on the right channels with the right products.
Sources:
What Influencers Are Right For Your Brand? | Forbes
How to Define Your Target Market | Inc.com
The Beginners Guide To Brand Values (+ Examples of Core Values) | Medium
