What's Affiliate Marketing?

What’s your dream?

Mine is to make money while I sleep. For a huge percentage of people, affiliate marketing is how this happens.

The premise is that you promote other people or companies’ products, earning commissions when people buy a product or service due to your marketing efforts.

There are 2 sides of an affiliate transaction: the business with a product or service to sell, and the affiliate marketer willing to promote the product on their own for a piece of the profit.

The Merchant is the party that creates the product. It can be a massive, Fortune 500 company that produces or sells a large array of products, or it can be a solo Entrepreneur with a service or product to sell.

The Affiliate is the party that markets. An affiliate marketing business can produce a few dollars in commissions each month or thousands depending on your marketing efforts and success. An affiliate can promote one or multiple products and sell potential customers on the value of the product they sell.

Use your email database to market directly toward your existing clients. If you have built a relationship with them, they may be a great place to start.

If you don’t have a database yet, companies like Lead Lightning (affiliate alert) can help you grow this list! And Aweber (affiliate alert) can keep you in touch with your leads.

Many bloggers will plug the products or services they are selling by writing reviews and providing personalized links to purchase.

Bloggers can also run banners or pop-up ads on their personal sites that take the reader directly to the product via the affiliate’s link.

You could build an entire site (like a Shopify store) that is dedicated to your affiliate products and allows purchase directly from your store. Companies like ClickBank or Alibaba allow you to import products into your store directly from their platform. You carry no inventory, and the products are drop-shipped directly to the customer.

Social Media Influencers are often Affiliate Marketers. They use their notoriety on Instagram or other social channels to sell products, either by wearing, spotlighting or giving a testimonial as to the product they are using (and selling). Anytime you see an Influencer giving you a link to purchase - they are Affiliate marketing that product.

There are some affiliates that must go through an affiliate network to be able to promote certain products. Some merchants manage their affiliate program on specific networks which serve as a database for multiple products. As an affiliate of that network, you can choose which products to promote.

Such is the case with Amazon, by far the largest Affiliate program around. You may become an affiliate of Amazon, and choose to sell only those products that make sense within your sphere of influence.

Amazon allows anyone to sign up and generate a custom affiliate link to Amazon products. If someone purchases through your link, you earn a small commission.

It’s pretty easy to determine if a company has an affiliate program - just check their website. So, if you are looking to sell products that make sense to your niche - a little research on your target company(s) could get you set up to make money on the products you love!