Everything You Need to Know About Affiliate Marketing

Do you want to earn while you are asleep? It is quite possible to earn passive income through affiliate marketing. Today, I would like to shed light on the concept of affiliate marketing. You may hear many times that affiliate marketing is dead and you can’t get any profit out of it. This is a misconception. If you make efforts and do the right kind of marketing then you would be able to make the most of it in the long run.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

If you have a website which provides information about certain product and services then you can become an affiliate of an online store or retailer. You promote a particular service and product on your website and share its purchase link in the post. Readers come to your website, read your promotional post, click on the link and buy a product/service. The online store has got sales due to your promotional activities, so he rewards you in the form of commission. Whenever a transaction will occur due to your promotional post, you will get paid.

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Know About 4 Main Participants

There are four parties involved in affiliate marketing.

1.    Affiliate:  The website or blog where product/service will get promoted is “affiliate”.  It could be an individual or company which runs a blog. The affiliate provides all information about the product and writes promotional content which could be a video or blog post.  They also promote this content through ads, SEO or email marketing tacts. Now when someone buys from their link, they will get paid in the form of commission. The amount of commission depends on the affiliate program they are working for.
2.    Merchants: The product creators who bring the product on the network, they are known as merchants. They offer a commission on product sale to the affiliate. A merchant can be a big brand like Panasonic or just an individual who is ready to pay commission to affiliate whenever they make a sale.
3.    The networks: They act as an intermediary between merchants and affiliate. The most popular networks are ShareASale and ClickBank. They manage affiliate account and track their promotional activities. They issue a third-party check to the affiliates. These checks drop down the fraud and scam on an online transaction. Merchants who don’t have time and resources to manage the affiliate, like to work with the networks.
4.    The consumers: They are end users who check the promotional content and buy a product. Whenever they make a transaction, an affiliate gets paid by networks.

Three Common Affiliate Marketing Models

Affiliate marketing is performance-based normally. It means that you will get paid when your visitor takes action. Now this transaction could be a click, pre-purchase, filling a form or making a sale. Here are 3 affiliate marketing models you need to understand.

1. Pay Per Click: You will get paid for all the clicks your content generated. This model is not very common as the whole risk is on the merchant.
2. Pay Per Lead: You will get paid for all the leads you generate. It is the most common model as both affiliate and merchant share the risk of the transaction.
3. Pay per Sale: It means that you will get commission only when the visitor makes a sale. This is another common model but very risky as all the risk of a transaction is upon an affiliate.

What is the Mechanism of Affiliate marketing?

If you are interested to generate commission through affiliate marketing process then the first thing you need to do is to become a part of a network. You can sign up for a network such as HubSpot affiliate program, Amazon Associate program, ShareASale, or ClickBank.

After the registration process is complete, you will get an affiliate id. Now you can put this affiliate id in your promotional content. Whenever a visitor will click on your affiliate link then a cookie is inserted into the browser to track actions.

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Now network will keep full tracking record. In case a visitor makes a transaction like buys a product or fill a form or generate lead then it is a qualified action. Now affiliate will get paid for this action. But if a visitor won’t do anything then affiliate won’t get anything in return as no qualified transaction take place.

As far as payout structure is concerned, some networks make weekly payment while other release funds on a monthly basis. It’s your choice to pick a network with your desirable payout structure.

Wrap up

One thing you should know that there is no upfront cost for joining an affiliate network. But you definitely have to put effort, money and time on a blog for the promotion of affiliate products. You would be able to get paid for transactions only when it is promoted well and people buy with the mean of your link. I have shared a basic affiliate marketing tips and guide with you. If you still have some question then feel free to ask.