Affiliate marketing – what is it and does it work?

Affiliation and marketing is a combination that is becoming more and more popular. This model of promoting products and services is mainly associated with bloggers and influencers, but the sender of an advertising message can be any person with a large audience on the web. What is affiliate marketing and who should be interested in it? Can it become a source of high earnings? You will find answers to these and similar questions below.

Affiliate Marketing: What is it?

Affiliate marketing, also known as affiliate marketing, is one of the collaborative marketing techniques. As a rule, three parties take part in it:

• Advertiser – a company that makes its products available on the affiliate network.
• Publisher – in other words a partner, i.e. a person who promotes products through his channel.
• User – the recipient of the message clicking the affiliate link and performing the action for which the publisher charges a commission.

Sometimes there is also a fourth page, which is the affiliate network . It is an affiliate program organizer that helps advertisers and publishers collaborate. Usually, this platform has its own conversion counting system. The way in which the remuneration for promoting products and services is calculated depends on the arrangements of the cooperating parties. It can be a certain percentage of the value of purchases or a fixed rate for actions performed by users, for example clicking on affiliate links or filling out a form.

Affiliate marketing works in various industries: e-commerce , financial and insurance, as well as in footwear and clothing. It is also a good proposition for the banking and technology sectors. There are many opportunities for development.

How affiliate marketing works

The essence of affiliate marketing is to promote products or services. This can be done in various ways, and a lot depends on the limitations of the rules of a given program. An advertisement is not only an ordinary banner, but also e.g. mailing. Regardless of its form, the obligatory element is a link leading to the advertiser’s website. This is not a simple link, it is created in such a way that it is possible to identify the partner who is entitled to remuneration.

Mostly, affiliate marketing is used to promote, inter alia, financial and educational services, as well as e-books and jewelry (due to relatively high profits). Interestingly, you do not need your own blog or social media account to carry out activities in this field. In theory, everyone can do it, including people with no experience. Usually, however, reputable and reputable partners are selected to promote products and services. This is because the affiliate industry is often just one part of a broader internet marketing strategy.

For affiliation to take place, two sides are necessary. One of them provides a specific product or service (the advertiser), and the other, i.e. the partner, recommends it to third parties. He receives remuneration when someone, on his recommendation, decides to buy a product or performs other desired action.

How does it work in practice? Here is one of the simplest examples: a blogger dealing with animal subjects receives a proposal to cooperate with a pet store regarding the promotion of a pet food. He places an advertising banner on his blog, encouraging him to buy it. Each user who clicks on it and orders a feed increases the pet shop’s sales and profits, and the blogger receives a commission as a result.

Affiliate marketing – how to start?

As already mentioned, affiliation is not a proven source of income only for people popular on the Internet. Keeping a blog or having a social media account is optional, but on the other hand, it can be very helpful. The first step in affiliate marketing is choosing a platform to conduct promotional activities. Then you need to find the right ad category and then the right affiliate network. You can subscribe to one of the most popular or look for an attractive partner program tailored to your individual needs. It is worth paying attention to such issues as the minimum earnings threshold allowing for the withdrawal of funds.

After signing up to the affiliate network, generate your link to the recommended products and complete some formalities, incl. determine how you will receive commission (withdrawal to your bank account or using the PayPal service) and billing. Later, the only thing left is to encourage users to switch to the affiliate link . How to do it? There are several options to choose from. Depending on the strategy taken and the way of promoting the products, affiliate marketing can be distinguished:

• Unrelated: its purpose is not to build relationships with recipients, nor does it require credibility. It all comes down to PPC ads, and users usually click on the links out of curiosity (which usually results from the deliberate use of catchy and not entirely true titles, i.e., clickbait).
• Connected-a person running a business on the Internet in this way promotes products that they have not used themselves. This involves the risk of losing the trust of recipients when their quality turns out to be unsatisfactory.
• Committed: a person recommends products that he uses and knows well. So advertising becomes credible. To use this type of affiliate marketing, you first need to spend a lot of time building a relationship with your audience, but it can guarantee an extremely high conversion rate.

Affiliate Marketing – Earnings

How much can you earn from affiliate marketing? It is difficult to indicate the amount precisely, because a lot depends on the selected industry, recommended products or services and your own efforts. Statistics show that this type of activity provides publishers with 5-20% of annual revenue. So it can be several hundred zlotys or much more. The more commitment an affiliate shows , the greater his profit becomes.

It is worth bearing in mind that affiliate marketing is usually not the perfect way to earn money very quickly. In order for your income to be noticeable and satisfactory, you need to spend a lot of time on it. As a rule, the most profitable campaigns are from the financial and banking sectors, but the automotive, clothing and electronics industries are also associated with high income. 

Advantages and disadvantages of affiliate marketing

One of the most important advantages of affiliate marketing is that it is less intrusive than regular advertising. If the publisher matches the promoted products well with the subject of their blog or other platform and takes care of high-quality content, the message will turn out to be very effective. Measuring the results is not difficult, this type of marketing allows you to monitor the effectiveness of activities in real time and introduce changes if necessary. From the advertiser’s point of view, an important asset of affiliation is reaching a wide audience (thanks to the activities of publishers). Profitability is also important here. A person or company that makes its products available for advertising pays only for the achieved goal. This allows you to eliminate the risk of incurring high costs for ineffective marketing activities.

What are the disadvantages of affiliate marketing? These include a low commission per client (though not always) and a relatively long waiting time for profit, especially at a satisfactory level. From a publisher’s perspective, creating engaging and engaging content that encourages clicking on affiliate links is often difficult. This requires not only attention to the correctness of the text but also knowledge of internet marketing in order to be able to plan an effective strategy, also in terms of SEO . The disadvantages of affiliation often include, among other things, problems in choosing the right method of cooperation or form of settlement.

Affiliate Marketing Examples

Affiliate marketing is currently very popular. Many companies operating in various industries choose it. Below are some affiliate examples.

Amazon PartnerNet

This is an example of one of the largest affiliate marketing programs. Amazon PartnerNet has become a source of additional income for many developers. All you need to do is sign up for the program, then find recommendable products on Amazon and create personalized sharing links. The amount of commission varies from 1% to 10%, with the highest standard income for categories such as jewelry, clothing, footwear, and Amazon devices (Kindle and Echo). The program is open to publishers, bloggers, and content creators who maintain a website or mobile application that meets all the participation requirements. Each application to join Amazon PartnerNet is considered individually.

AliExpress Affiliate Program

AliExpress, the largest multi-lingual retail platform, offers its own affiliate program. People who join it can promote products or stores from all available categories. It is not only jewelry and watches, women’s and men’s fashion or footwear, but also DIY and tools, home, pets and consumer electronics. There are also many ways to share affiliate links. Partners do it through, inter alia, Facebook (including through thematic groups), other social media or your own website or blog.

Source: https://portals.aliexpress.com/

The Booking.com Affiliate Partner Program

Affiliate marketing is developing in many industries, including broadly understood tourism. The affiliate program offers, among others Booking.com, one of the most popular online booking services. With the help of a special platform, it is possible to monitor your revenues and optimize your entire advertising strategy to increase your earnings. Profit from commission is charged each time someone makes a booking through the partner’s site. It promotes objects that it chooses itself.

Increasing your reach and easily reaching new customers are important benefits of affiliate marketing. Is it worth deciding on this type of action? Certainly, they should not be underestimated because, as the statistics show, more than 80% of brands have their own affiliate program. This is an area that is likely to continue to grow in importance. Currently, the estimated value of affiliate marketing is approximately $12 billion.

Affiliate marketing FAQ

How do I start my affiliate marketing?

Where to begin with affiliate marketing and how to get started

• Choose a platform to run on.
• Pick a specific target market.
• Discover affiliate programs that you may sign up for.
• Create outstanding content.
• Bring people to the website of your affiliate program.
• Achieve a high click-through rate on your affiliate links.
• Attempt to turn clicks into actual sales.

Do affiliate marketers make money?

Affiliate marketing has the potential to be lucrative, but in order to turn it into a legitimate business, you will need to invest both time and money. Before you jump on the bandwagon of affiliate marketing, be sure you’ve done your homework. Also, remember to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

Can beginners do affiliate marketing?

The only thing required of you is to sign up for their affiliate program, retrieve your link, and then publish it on your page or website. When you’re just getting started, it’s ideal since you don’t have to put a lot of money into buying physical or digital things right once. This makes it a great way to save money.

Is affiliate marketing a good job?

Affiliate marketing has the potential to be a lucrative business with true financial stability; in addition, there is significant expansion potential due to the fact that this possibility is relatively undiscovered. It’s quite similar to beginning a business on Amazon, but it’s easier because you’re not selling your own things; instead, you’re selling other people’s.

Can you start affiliate marketing with no money?

Therefore, the question is: Is there a free trial period? The correct response is “yes.” This guide will help you understand how to generate money with affiliate marketing (without having to pay any upfront charges) and will provide you with a step-by-step lesson on how to get started with affiliate marketing.

Which company is best for affiliate marketing?

Best Affiliate Marketing Companies

• Flipkart Affiliate.
• Amazon Affiliate.
• vCommission.
• eBay.
• HostGator Affiliate.
• Admitad.
• Nearbuy Affiliate.
• GoDaddy Affiliate. etc

Do you need a website for affiliate marketing?

You do not need to have a website in order to engage in affiliate marketing; all you need is traffic or an audience, which may come from anywhere, including your YouTube channel, Instagram account, or Facebook page. It is necessary to just copy and paste the affiliate link into your article in order to verify the sales that have been generated as a result of your post or video.

What is an example of affiliate marketing?

When trying to promote their affiliate programs, online marketers may sometimes provide bonuses to anyone who purchases the deal they are promoting. For instance, you might offer a follower who has made a purchase a free copy of an ebook that you have written. Customers are encouraged to make purchases by promotions such as this one because they improve the value of the offer.

How fast can you make money affiliate marketing?

However, you undoubtedly still have the question in the back of your mind of how long it takes to generate money with affiliate marketing. The majority of specialty websites that are well-made will see their first affiliate commissions within the first six months of their existence.

Can I do affiliate marketing on Instagram?

Is it still possible for me to use affiliate links on Instagram? You can certainly use many affiliate networks all at once. This is not a problem. A helpful hint: commissions are distributed according to the affiliate link that received the most clicks in the end.