Imagine being able to make money – without any of the headaches and hassles of running a traditional Internet business. That's the power of affiliate marketing. Right now, thousands of people all over the world are making part-time and full-time incomes from their computers. Without stocking or shipping products, writing sales letters, building websites, or even dealing with customers.
These smart marketers are using the power of affiliate marketing to create serious money online.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is making money by promoting another company's products and services. Many companies, large and small, have affiliate programs that allow affiliates to promote their offers for a percentage of each sale.
When you promote a company's offers and make a sale, you get paid a commission. Affiliates like it because they can make serious income without a website or inventory. Companies like it because they only pay when a sale is made.
Some of the largest online retailers with affiliate programs include Amazon.com, Walmart, eBay, and many more.
Signup is free – and it immediately puts you into your own online business. With just a few clicks, you're able to profit from the proven products, websites, and sales funnels of huge billion-dollar companies.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Affiliate marketing is easy to understand. There are 2 key players: The Seller (or product creator) and the Affiliate (or publisher).
- The Seller: The seller is the company, large or small, that has created a product or service and allows affiliates to promote their offers for a percentage of each sale. These offer can be physical products, like books, TV's, supplements, and luggage – or online offers, like software, memberships, digital courses, or coaching programs.
- The Affiliate: The affiliate is the individual who joins the seller's affiliate program in order to profit by promoting the seller's offers. Since most affiliate programs are free to join, this is one of the fastest, easiest, and lowest-risk ways to start making money on the internet.
How Do Affiliates Make Money?
As an affiliate, you can get paid a variety of ways.
- Pay Per Sale: Most affiliate programs pay you per sale. It may be a flat percentage of all sales (i.e. 5% of all sales on our site) or it may be a specific amount per offer (i.e. $1,000 commission on a $2,000 sale). Different companies pay different amounts, so it's important to check a company's per-sale payout so you're clear on what you're being paid. Some affiliate programs pay very low commissions per sale (5% or less) while other pay much more, from 25% to 50% or more. As you start to generate more sales for a particular seller, you may even be able to negotiate higher commissions per sale.
- Pay Per Lead: This type of program pays you for generating a lead for a company, instead of a sale. For example, you may be paid $1 per lead to get prospects to sign up for an email newsletter or free trial of a product.
- Pay Per Click: This type of program pays you for simply delivering traffic to a specific offer. If you have a blog or site with plenty of traffic, this can be a valuable way to monetize your daily visitors.
How Much Can You Make?
Affiliate commissions can vary widely from company to company. Some larger companies only pay 5% to 10% per sale, while others pay 25% to 50% or more.
One thing to look at when you're checking out affiliate programs is how much a company's products and services sell for. For example, one of the largest affiliate programs is “Clickfunnels“. Clickfunnels is a sales funnel creator that online businesses can tap into to create their sales websites & make online sales.
And you can always test out the actual service for free for 2 weeks. Click here for a free two week test trial. And yes, this is our affiliate link.
Clickfunnels has a huge line of training products and services that affiliates can promote and when someone buys through your special-coded affiliate link, you get a commission.
Related: Everything You Need to Know About Clickfunnels
For example, when you promote their new book called Traffic Secrets (which you can pick up for free through our affiliate link), you earn $1 per giveaway. We would earn $1 commission when you get your free copy (just pay shipping).
Then, if you purchase anything from the Clickfunnels line of products or services, you earn 40% commissions. Their main software runs around $97 to $297 per month. 40% of that creates a passive residual income for you.
Special Offer: 6 Months of Clickfunnels
- 6 Months to 12 Months Access to Clickfunnels
- Funnel Builder Secrets Training
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- Paid Promotion Through ILMM
What are the Benefits of Being an Affiliate?
Starting out as an affiliate is one of the best ways to create real side hustle income.
Here are why so many people are attracted to affiliate marketing:
- Profit from Proven Success
As an affiliate, the biggest benefit is being able to profit from proven success. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can become an affiliate for some of the world's largest and most successful companies. And one of the best ways to make commissions is to start a profitable blog and make money blogging around one topic called a “niche”.
That lets you profit from millions in infrastructure, inventory, and support – right from your laptop computer. Best of all, since most affiliate programs are free, you can always join new programs as trends change. As an affiliate, you can always having multiple income-producing offers making you daily profits. - Done-for-You Marketing Materials
Many affiliate programs give you done-for-you, ready-to-go marketing tools designed to help you maximize your profits. This lets you jump into promotion without needing to spend a dime on any of your own marketing materials. - No Cost to Join
Affiliate marketing is the ultimate no-money-needed side hustle. Most affiliate programs are free to join. While some affiliate programs will require you to submit an application and be approved before you can promote their programs, even these are free to join. - No Prospect or Customer Support
When prospects or customers have questions, it's all handled by the seller. They will work to make the initial sale – or even multiple sales to existing customers – and you'll make the commissions. You'll never have to worry about anyone reaching out to you for help or assistance.
Affiliate Marketing Creates Passive Income & Financial Freedom
We recommend creating content around your topic using all the social media tools while also building an email list to follow-up with your new “tribe”. Click here to see which emailing services & platforms we use and recommend. - Passive Income
Another big benefit of affiliate marketing is making passive income. Your only task each day is to promote your affiliate offers. That's it. The company's websites, sales funnels, and staff do all of the selling for you. You can make affiliate commissions 24-hours a day, even if you're only working your affiliate business just a few hours a week. If you're looking for additional ideas on how to make money, click here.
If you are looking for ways to make money on the side so you can work less, then check out these popular posts:
7 Side Hustle Ideas to Make Extra Money
How to Create a Print On Demand Brand
Buy and Rent Out Vacation Homes
Create a Side Hustle without Leaving the Home - Time Freedom
Affiliates love the freedom and control they have over their time. As an affiliate, you get to choose your own hours. You can work your affiliate business in just a few hours a week as a side-hustle – or it can be your full-time gig, making you six figures a year or more. As an affiliate, you're always the one in charge of how much you choose to do. - Location Freedom
As an affiliate, you also get to choose where you work from. You can work your affiliate business from your kitchen or coffee table, a spare bedroom, the local coffee shop, a park, or even while you're on vacation. Since you can run your entire affiliate marketing business right from your laptop, all you need is a plugin and wifi access. With this type of mobile-friendly business, you can make affiliate income from anyone in the world.
Affiliate Marketing Success Stories
Pat Went From Laid Off to Million-Dollar Affiliate: After being laid off from his dream job, Pat went online to start making money as an affiliate. Over time, he built up his affiliate commissions into the millions of dollars, including over $30,000 in commissions from one web hosting affiliate program.
Michelle Makes Six-Figures a Month and Travels The World: After college, Michelle found herself anchored to a pile of student loan debt, working in an uninspiring job. She discovered affiliate marketing and started to make extra money in her spare time. Today, Michelle is fully self-employed, has paid off her student loans completely, and now makes a full-time income while she's traveling the world. She now makes over $100,000+ per month!
Related Article: Learn How to Make Money with On Demand Affiliate Marketing Where You Learn & Implement at the Same Time
How to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing in 3 Steps
Getting started with affiliate marketing is very easy. However, if you really want to succeed as an affiliate and generate substantial income, your time and money are best spent finding a mentor who can guide you to success.
1. Find 1-3 Affiliate Mentors to Follow
Limit yourself to finding and following one affiliate marketing mentor. With so much free information available online, it's easy to get overwhelmed. You can get stuck in reading and studying instead of taking action.
Finding a mentor who is already a successful affiliate and following their step-by-step guidance – usually through an affiliate training course – helps you focus and take daily action that will get you results.
2. Schedule Time Daily to Work Your Business
Set aside time each day to work your new affiliate business. There's an old saying that if you treat your business like a hobby, it'll pay you like a hobby. But if you treat it like a business, it'll pay you like a business.
Scheduling time daily (even if it's 30 to 60 minutes a day) to focus on studying and implementing what you're learning, is how you start to see results. Every day you're stacking your actions. The more daily actions you take, the better you'll get, and the greater your results will be.
This is the process you'll create, but you must understand the principle. Money is created through the value that you put out there. You deliver value through creating content (reviews, education, tutorials, training, lead magnets, podcasts, youtubes, tiktoks, etc). The more value you put out there the more money you make. Fall in love with this process, and you'll easily create a six or seven figure business monetized with affiliate marketing.
3. Create Systems That Grow Your Affiliate Income
Yes, you probably have financial goals you want to achieve with your new affiliate business. Having a compelling future vision is important to motivate you. But remember that your business is built in your daily habits. It's the actions you take consistently that stack up into real results.
Losers have goals. Winners have systems. – Scott Adams Click To TweetAs you go through your affiliate training, look for ways to create repeatable systems and processes that will grow your income. When you have systems, you're more likely to follow them consistently. As your business grows, you can also hire contractors or employees to follow your systems as well. This gives you the opportunity to scale up your affiliate income – without having to increase your own hours.
Click Here to Take Our On-Demand Affiliate Marketing Course Called Unstoppable Affiliate. You Learn & Implement At the Same Time. That speeds up the learning & the doing.
Frequently Asked Questions About Making Money with 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. The affiliate promotes the business's products or services and earns a commission on any sales made. For example, if a customer clicks on an affiliate's link and makes a purchase, the affiliate will earn a percentage of the sale. The affiliate marketing business model can be an effective way for companies to reach a larger audience and for affiliates to earn income by promoting products and services they believe in.
Affiliate marketers get paid when they help to generate a sale or lead for a business. The business will typically provide the affiliate with a unique link or code to track their promotions. When a customer clicks on the affiliate's link and makes a purchase, the affiliate is credited with the sale and earns a commission. The amount of the commission and the payment method will vary depending on the affiliate program. Some businesses may pay affiliates a fixed commission for each sale, while others may pay a percentage of the sale price or offer a tiered commission structure based on the amount of sales generated. Affiliates may receive payment through various methods, such as PayPal, direct deposit, or check.
Here is a step-by-step guide to how affiliate marketing works:
A business offers an affiliate program, which is a partnership between the business and an affiliate.
The affiliate promotes the business's products or services using a unique link or code provided by the business.
When a customer clicks on the affiliate's link and makes a purchase, the sale is tracked using the unique link or code.
The affiliate earns a commission on the sale, which is agreed upon in the affiliate program agreement.
The business pays the affiliate the agreed-upon commission for the sale.
This process can be repeated for each sale or lead generated by the affiliate's marketing efforts. Affiliates may use various methods to promote the business, such as creating content, running ads, or sharing the link on social media. It's important for affiliates to disclose that they are being compensated for their promotions, in accordance with advertising laws.
Yes, beginners can do affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing can be a good way for beginners to start making money online, as it does not require a large upfront investment and can be done from anywhere with an internet connection. However, it is important for beginners to do their research and understand the basics of affiliate marketing before getting started. This includes learning about different affiliate programs, how to promote products effectively, and how to track and measure the success of their efforts. With time and effort, beginners can learn the skills and strategies needed to succeed in affiliate marketing.
Very good article. I am experiencing many of these issues as well..
Is there a beginner course to learn affiliate marketing?
Yes, check out the Unstoppable Affiliate course. That’s our hands-on, on demand course where you learn & implement at the same time.
Click here to check out Unstoppable Affiliate.
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