Have you dream of Starting Affiliate Marketing 2023? If yes, come with me and let get into it.
Have you dream of Starting Affiliate Marketing 2023? If yes, come with me and let get into it.
You’ve probably come across an affiliate marketing company if you’ve ever purchased something that an online influencer recommended. In order to promote a brand’s goods and services, online creators frequently form partnerships with them. They get paid a commission for every sale.
The field of affiliate marketing is expanding. One study estimates that worldwide spending on affiliate marketing will reach $14.3 billion in 2023.
However, many sometimes fail to go into affiliate marketing due to the cost it sometimes comes with. For example, one may want to develop websites for the product he or she affiliates. And this come with some cost in buying for domain and web hosting.
I Scamper always receive this question [ Can I start affiliate marketing for free? ]
Simple and short answer
Yes !
This guide will help you understand how to make money online with affiliate marketing if that has been your dream (without having to pay anything up front) and give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to get started. The only thing you’ll need to is consistency and invest your time.
How does affiliate marketing work?
The practice of recommending a product or service offered by another company and receiving a commission for it is known as affiliate marketing. It can be a very profitable business model because the company pays you for every sale you refer.
Others will provide a fixed bonus, others will pay different commission rates, and still others will provide free goods or services in exchange. Examples of affiliate marketing programs include the Shopify Affiliate Program and Amazon Affiliates.
Why is affiliate marketing?
You may be asking yourself, “A business built on recommendations? Sounds like it’s too good to be true. Although a fair dose of skepticism is a good thing, according to PayScale, the average affiliate marketer in the US makes around $55,275 a year.
Due to the success of its business strategy, affiliate marketing can be used to support a living. This is why:
- It’s low risk. Businesses only need to pay you when you successfully refer a customer to them (as opposed to paying an influencer fee). The only thing lost for affiliates is time if you don’t meet the mark because costs can stay minimal (if they even exist).
- It’s a win-win for everyone. The sales you generate help the company succeed, and you get paid as a result. Customers nevertheless gain from getting a reliable recommendation to meet their requirements.
- You can work from anywhere in the world.Affiliate marketing can enable you to work from any location if you’ve ever fantasized about leading a nomadic lifestyle as a digital nomad. But make careful to follow any labor or tax rules that pertain to your job.
- You can earn passive income. Building a library of high-quality, evergreen content is a successful passive revenue strategy. Even though it may take some time, you’ll eventually discover that the material you’ve already produced continues to bring in affiliate commissions months or even years after you originally published it.
How to start affiliate marketing
- Find a niche
- Choose an affiliate program
- Decide on a traffic source
- Create content to build trust
- Grow an audience
- Respond and chat with your audience
At first, the path to become an affiliate marketer may appear difficult. But if you divide it up into smaller parts, reaching your objectives will be much simpler.
1. Find a niche
The best way to succeed in affiliate marketing is by establishing yourself within a niche. “Affiliate marketing, especially when you’re a beginner with no startup money, takes long-term thinking,” says Vivian Tejeda, writer and affiliate marketer. “First you need to focus on the fundamentals, like deciding on a niche and traffic source.”
A niche is the topic you’ll become an authority on. Some of the best niches include:
- Hobbies: travel, photography, golfing, outdoors
- Money: Bitcoin, personal finance, credit cards, investing
- Health: fitness, nutrition, vegan food, weight loss, yoga, sexual wellness
- Lifestyle: luxury, airlines, fashion, jewelry
- Home: baby products, pets, plants, security
- Tech: web hosting, VPN, gaming, software
- Alternative: personal development, supplements, acupuncture and meditation, herbal remedies.
You need a niche because if you endorse a wide range of things, people won’t view you as an authority they can rely on. Contrarily, if you exclusively endorse one kind of product and write material on it, people will be able to tell that you are an authority in that field.
Additionally, it aids you in the future with search engine optimization (SEO) on social media and your affiliate website, should you decide to create one.
How then do you decide on your niche?
Start with markets that have a good probability of being profitable. For instance, according to our research*, apparel, books, and media have some of the lowest commissions, whereas business-related programs have some of the highest commissions:
These aren’t your only possibilities, though, and some niches are more successful on some platforms than others. Remember: Affiliate marketing is not a “get rich quick” scheme. To keep you motivated, you’ll need to have at least some personal interest in your niche.
Ask yourself the following questions to narrow down your options:
1. Are you curious to learn more about your niche? Keeping up with trends and industry news in your area is super important in making sure you stay relevant for your audience.
2. Do you already have experience or training in a specialized area? If you’re already knowledgeable on a subject, you can flatten your learning curve and get ahead more easily.
3. Is it possible to create content without upfront investment? Some niches like technology or travel can involve a lot of upfront costs if you don’t already have the equipment or content to start with.
4. Is it profitable? Ultimately, you want to make money. If your niche is either too broad, so you end up with too much competition, or too narrow, so you don’t have enough people interested in it, you’ll risk not making a profit.
Choosing a niche is a fine balance, and it can take some time and practice to hit the right spot—so don’t be put off if you don’t see success right away.
2. Choose an affiliate program
Once you’ve decided on a niche, the next step is choosing what affiliate program to join. It makes sense to choose an affiliate program or affiliate products that align with your niche.
For example, take vegan fitness and lifestyle educator Derek Simnett. He is an affiliate marketer for Vedge Nutrition protein supplements. He chose this affiliate program because it aligns with his goals and content, meaning he can make affiliate income promoting products he believes in.
You can look for relevant affiliate programs in your niche directly or through marketplaces, respectively. You can approach those companies directly and enroll in their affiliate marketing programs if you are already aware of them (affiliate programs are typically free to join).
The alternative is to sign up for an affiliate network or program marketplace where you may explore thousands of programs and enroll in them directly through the marketplace.
Affiliate networks offer new marketers free and easy access to thousands of reputable affiliate programs you can join right away. Affiliate networks feature brands with affiliate programs in various niches. Some include:
The commission rate and earnings per click (EPC) rate should also be taken into consideration when choosing an affiliate marketing program, even though each of them is a reliable alternative. Even if an affiliate marketing program has a high EPC but a low compensation rate, joining could still be advantageous.
3. Decide on a traffic source
You must now begin considering the traffic source for your affiliate marketing campaigns. When beginning their careers as affiliate marketers, Vivian advises producers to take use of the numerous free platforms available. You can open a free account on platforms like Instagram, TikTik, YouTube, and blogging and start producing content straight now, she claims.
People frequently believe that in order to start a blog, you need to have a dedicated website, which is expensive. It’s not necessary, however it might be useful if you intend to scale the firm.
Other (free) traffic sources, like social media sites, YouTube, and forum-based websites like Reddit and Quora, can be used to start making affiliate sales. Let’s examine a few benefits and drawbacks for each channel:
- Pros: The largest social media platform around. You can reach a big audience for your affiliate products.
- Cons: Less attractive to younger audiences. Poor organic reach.
- Pros: Highly visual, excellent for showcasing affiliate products and services. Strong emphasis on video content like Reels and Stories.
- Cons: Lower organic reach for feed posts.
YouTube
- Pros: Great for search engine optimization (SEO). Global audience of over two billion people a month.
- Cons: Significant competition in most niches. Videos need to be professional and high quality to attract new and returning visitors and keep them engaged enough to click on an affiliate link.
TikTok
- Pros: Short video clips that don’t require a “professional” look and feel. More personalized content and authentic experiences. Trends start on TikTok.
- Cons: Links in descriptions are not clickable. Your affiliate link will need to live on a link in bio page.
- Pros: Excellent organic reach for affiliate marketers. Established platform for professionals.
- Cons: Predominantly for B2B audiences.
You might be thinking, “But I don’t have a social media following. How will I make money?” If you don’t have a following, now is your chance to start building one. That being said, you don’t need a huge following to make money with affiliate marketing—you just need to reach the right audience.
Lots of affiliate marketers make their income entirely through social media. A great example would be Papery Thoughts, a YouTube channel (among other social media accounts) that creates YouTube videos about journaling.
The channel generates affiliate sales through links to products in the video description that the creator uses onscreen. Here, the creator shares an affiliate link with her subscribers for 10% off at The Washi Tape Shop.
Other strategies for utilizing social media for affiliate marketing include joining Facebook groups related to your niche and participating in discussions there, as well as adding comments to pertinent TikTok videos in your field. Participation is the key to growing an audience instead of merely bombarding individuals with affiliate offers.
4. Create content to build trust
No matter which platform(s) you decide to use for your affiliate marketing efforts, the next step is to start creating content that builds trust with your target audience. In 2023, internet users worldwide spent, on average, 151 minutes per day on social media. What keeps us online for over two hours a day? Great content. This is an affiliate marketer’s best strategy.
Focus on publishing high-quality content that teaches your audience something. Always bring value to them, do not focus your content around yourself.Kelly Marohl, owner, The Greenspring Home
As The Greenspring Home owner Kelly Marohl explains, creating the best content means not being self-serving. “Focus on publishing high-quality content that teaches your audience something,” says Kelly. “Always bring value to them. Do not focus your content around yourself.
“You’re going to be excited to start earning affiliate sales and landing brand deals, but before you can do that, build a highly engaged audience. That will pay off in dividends later!”
Since building a content library takes time, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and create a content calendar or strategy that matches your affiliate marketing goals. Your calendar can include outlines of what type of content you’ll publish on any given day, such as:
- Tutorials
- Q&As
- Product reviews
- How-Tos
- Tips and tricks
When coming up with your content strategy, also keep in mind a keyword strategy, especially for YouTube SEO (if you choose YouTube as your platform). After all, even high-quality content can get lost in the noise if you don’t optimize it for search results.
You can choose the best keywords to employ by doing some research. Try looking for your competitors’ channels on YouTube, for instance. Examine their most popular videos and take note of the hashtags, description, and title they have utilized.
Remember to provide links to your affiliate’s products or services when doing affiliate marketing, as well as a disclaimer stating that you are an affiliate.
5. Grow an audience
While you’re creating content on your platform of choice, it’s also a good idea to start building an email list or SMS list. There are two main reasons for doing this:
1. You own your contact list
So, you don’t need to rely on social media platforms to interact with your audience. All of the major platforms have hiccups now and then, so when they go down you can always contact your audience via email.
2. You’re able to leverage affiliate links
While some affiliate programs don’t allow you to include affiliate links in your emails (Amazon’s affiliate program being the main one), you can still email links to content you create that contain an affiliate link—you send traffic to any of your content.
Utilizing your email list is a fantastic way to further establish your authority in your area of expertise while providing even more value to your audience. Here are a few concepts to get you started on creating content for your email list:
- Industry reports or news
- Links to new blog posts
- Interview roundups or summaries
- Behind the scenes of your life or business
- Promotional deals (occasionally)
- Free digital downloads
When it comes to building an email list for free, there are plenty of email marketing software providers that offer free plans, including Shopify Email, Mailchimp, and MailerLite. It’s worth shopping around to see which one suits you best.
Once you build trust with an audience, you can start promoting high-ticket affiliate programs. These affiliate programs offer opportunities to make up to five figures per sale. However, you often need to have an established niche and influence to encourage people to buy more expensive products.
6. Respond and chat with your audience
Engagement with your audience is the final piece of advice for expanding your affiliate marketing business. Engaging in dialogue not only makes your subscribers or followers feel heard, but it also benefits you in the eyes of social media algorithms.
When users connect with your material, algorithms are typically alerted and decide to promote it and show it to more users who might be interested.
When you like and reply to comments on your videos on TikTok, for instance, those comments will have a unique badge that reads “Liked by creator” and sticks out from the others.
In this example from influencer and affiliate marketer Lauren Loveless, she’s responding to comments from fans to help them make a purchase on her recommended product from Rare Beauty. Lauren has multiple affiliate links accessed from the link-in-bio page attached to her TikTok account. When she posts content driving to these links, she is engaged in the comments.
These conversations are significant because they show your audience that you do read and value their opinions. They will therefore be more inclined to interact with your future material (and perhaps even persuade others to do the same).
A win-win situation is achieved by responding to your audience and learning what they might want from you in terms of future content.
Start your affiliate marketing business today
Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to come with upfront investment as many think. Taking the steps outlined in this article can be a relatively risk-free way of starting your affiliate marketing journey. The only cost? Your time and effort.
So, start thinking about what niche you could start building, working up to a passive income revenue stream, until you can work from anywhere you want (or just tinker with outside your main income).
Stand the chance to become an affiliate marketer today and join the online money making team. Don’t forget to share the good news with friends and family. Also drop your comment below.
Source : Shopify Staff
Edited By Olagraphicsacademy