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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners (The Ultimate Guide)

Affiliate marketing is an online revenue model that allows you to earn commissions by promoting products or services. As an affiliate marketer, you partner with brands and businesses to drive sales to their products. When you successfully refer customers to those products through your marketing efforts, you earn a percentage of the revenue generated.

Affiliate marketing offers an excellent opportunity to monetize your online presence. If you have a website, social media following, email list, or other digital real estate, you can leverage your platform to generate recurring passive income. Unlike other models that require you to create and sell your own products, affiliate marketing allows you to earn money by promoting other people’s products.

This beginner’s guide will walk you through everything you need to know to get started in affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model where businesses reward partners who refer customers to them. It allows companies to expand their marketing reach by leveraging influencers, content creators, and publishers.

As an affiliate, you earn commissions by promoting products and driving verifiable sales. Most affiliate programs offer pay-per-sale commissions, but some also include pay-per-click, pay-per-lead, or hybrid compensation models.

Here is a simple step-by-step example of how affiliate marketing works:

  1. You join an affiliate program for an online retailer like Amazon as an affiliate partner.
  2. You promote products from that retailer by including affiliate links on your website, social media, YouTube videos, emails, etc.
  3. Your audience clicks on those links and makes a purchase on the retailer’s website.
  4. The retailer tracks sales made through your affiliate links using tracking cookies or referral IDs.
  5. At the end of each period, the retailer pays you an agreed commission on verified sales.

Affiliate marketing creates a win-win scenario. You earn commissions on sales you help generate, while the businesses you promote expand their reach and sell more products.

How Do Affiliates Get Paid?

There are several common affiliate commission structures:

  • Pay-per-sale (PPS) – You earn a percentage commission or flat fee each time someone makes a purchase using your affiliate link. This is the most common model.
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) – You get paid when someone clicks your affiliate link, regardless of whether they complete a purchase.
  • Pay-per-lead (PPL) – You’re paid when a visitor fills out a lead form like an email signup via your affiliate link.
  • Hybrid – Combines two or more commission models. For example, a flat fee PPS plus a lower percentage.

Typical affiliate commissions range from 1-30%, but averages are usually between 5-15%. The rate depends on factors like industry, product type, profit margins, etc. Some affiliates earn 6 or even 7 figure incomes!

Commission rates can vary across different products and categories. Digital products like ebooks or software tend to pay higher percentages than physical products.

Most programs pay commissions monthly, but some pay more frequently like weekly or bi-weekly. Payments are typically sent via PayPal or bank transfer.

Now that you understand the basics of how affiliate marketing works, let’s explore some of the benefits of this business model.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Here are some of the top advantages of affiliate marketing:

Low Barrier to Entry

One of the best things about affiliate marketing is that it’s accessible to anyone. You don’t need special qualifications, significant startup capital, or previous experience to get started.

The initial investment is your time and effort. As long as you have a platform to promote affiliate offers, you can hit the ground running. Many successful affiliates run their businesses as solopreneurs or with just a virtual assistant.

Passive Income Potential

Affiliate marketing presents an excellent opportunity to build passive income streams. After you drive traffic to a product, you’ll earn commissions month after month as long as the cookie or tracking ID remains on the prospect’s computer.

You earn money on autopilot from sales made when you’re sleeping or on vacation. Passive income gives you more time freedom to focus on the things you enjoy.

Minimal Risk

There is little financial risk involved with affiliate marketing because you don’t have to create, own, or inventory any products. You simply drive traffic and sales in exchange for commissions.

Most programs are also free to join, so there’s no upfront investment required. The main risk is the time invested in content creation and promotion, but your potential upside is much greater.

Be Your Own Boss

One of the best parts of affiliate marketing is that you get to be your own boss. You have the freedom to choose your hours and work remotely from anywhere with an internet connection.

You don’t have a manager breathing down your neck or tedious meetings to attend. You can take time off whenever you need it.

Unlimited Earning Potential

Your income potential is uncapped as an affiliate marketer. There are no salary ceilings like a 9 to 5 job. The more time you invest, the more money you can make. Top affiliates earn over 7 figures annually.

You can promote any number of affiliate offers across multiple traffic sources. The key is consistently driving a high volume of targeted traffic to scale your earnings.

Now that you know why affiliate marketing is such an attractive business model, let’s look at who it’s suitable for.

Who is Affiliate Marketing Good For?

Affiliate marketing is a highly flexible monetization model. It works for a variety of businesses, organizations, and individuals who have digital assets driving traffic.

Here are some examples of ideal affiliate marketers:

  • Bloggers
  • YouTubers
  • Podcasters
  • Influencers
  • Course creators
  • Website owners
  • Newsletter publishers
  • App developers
  • Niche communities

Essentially, if you have an engaged audience or digital real estate, you can leverage affiliate marketing to monetize it.

You don’t need huge traffic volumes to get started either. You can begin by promoting relevant offers to your initial website visitors or email subscribers. Once you gain experience, you can scale your efforts exponentially.

Now let’s explore some of the top affiliate marketing networks that you can join as a publisher.

Top Affiliate Programs for Beginners

If you’re just starting with affiliate marketing, you’ll need to join some affiliate programs (also called affiliate networks). These are intermediary platforms that connect businesses offering affiliate partnerships with publishers who want to promote offers.

Here are some of the best affiliate programs for beginners:

Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates is the affiliate program by the ecommerce giant Amazon. It offers one of the most popular marketplaces for physical and digital products across all categories. Their 24-hour cookie window gives you a chance to earn commissions even if prospects don’t buy right away.

Highlights:

Free and easy to join
Access to millions of products
Generous commission rates up to 10%
Well-known brand customers already trust

ShareASale

ShareASale has been an industry leading affiliate network for over 20 years. Their platform features over 4,000 merchant affiliate programs. You’ll find offers across categories like fashion, electronics, food, personal finance, and more.

Highlights:

  • Simple interface and reportin
  • $50 minimum payout threshold
  • Average 8% commissions
  • Offers many digital info-product

CJ Affiliate

CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction) is one of the largest affiliate marketing networks, specializing in pay-per-sale programs. They work with leading global brands across diverse verticals.

Highlights:

  • Free to join and easy account setup
  • Access to thousands of affiliate programs
  • Strong reputation for on-time payments
  • Generates over $2 billion in yearly sales

Rakuten Advertising

Formerly Buy.com and LinkShare, Rakuten Advertising connects publishers with over 1,500 merchant affiliate programs. They’re known for great tech, tools, and support for publishers.

Highlights:

  • Access to big name brands
  • Solid reputation for great support
  • $50 minimum payout
  • Easy to navigate platform

Impact Radius

Impact Radius focuses on promoting digital products like SaaS tools, apps, and online courses. They’re a leader in software and SaaS affiliate partnerships. Impact Radius offers real-time tracking and reporting.

Highlights:

  • Leading network for software affiliates
  • Owned by leading performance marketing agency
  • $100 minimum payout
  • $5k average order values

This covers some of the best affiliate platforms for beginners based on ease of use, reputation, and variety of offers. Once you gain experience, you can branch out into more specialized networks later.

Now let’s take a look at how to choose your initial affiliate offers as a new marketer.

Choosing Affiliate Products as a Beginner

When you first get started with affiliate marketing, one of the most important steps is choosing which products and services to promote. As a beginner, you want to select affiliate offers based on factors like:

  • Affiliate commission rates
  • Product appeal and demand
  • Your website or audience niche
  • Ease of promotion

Here are some types of affiliate products that tend to work well for beginners:

Digital Products

Promoting digital products and online services is ideal when you’re first starting out. These types of affiliate programs usually convert at higher rates and pay larger commissions because they have minimal fulfillment costs and higher profit margins.

Examples include:

  • eBooks – Informational digital products are evergreen. Promote ebooks related to your niche.
  • Online courses – High ticket info-products convert well and pay generous affiliate commissions.
  • Cloud storage – Services like Dropbox or Google Drive pay well. Offer discounts.
  • Stock media – Get referral commissions for sites like Envato Elements and Shutterstock.
  • Web hosting – Services like Bluehost and SiteGround offer lucrative recurring earnings.

Digital products allow you to earn commissions passively with less effort. You can promote them easily online through your content since no shipping is required.

Physical Products

Promoting physical products as an affiliate can work well too. However, look for items that align with your niche and content focus to maximize relevance.

Consider promoting:

  • Books – Amazon offers one of the most popular book affiliate programs. Promote Kindle books or audiobooks.
  • Amazon categories – Pick a specific product category on Amazon aligned with your niche. Promote a range of related products.
  • Gear and gadgets – Technology is a popular niche. Promote items like fitness trackers, headphones, or video games.
  • Beauty and cosmetics – Makeup and skincare are highly promotable. Offer coupon codes.
  • Apparel and accessories – Fashion is a huge niche, especially via influencers and style blogs promoting affiliate links.

Focus on higher priced items that offer at least 10-15% commissions to make promoting physical products worth your time as a beginner. Also consider items with good margins.

Services

You can also find great success promoting services as an affiliate marketer, especially for high ticket offers. Service-based programs tend to pay extremely high commissions since there’s no product creation cost.

Service affiliate opportunities include:

  • Web hosting – Web hosting affiliate commissions can surpass $100+ for some hosts. These earnings recur monthly as long as your referral remains a customer.
  • Cloud storage – Cloud backup services like Carbonite offer lucrative plans. You earn a percentage of any subscription signups.
  • Online courses – Digital learning platforms often pay over 50% commission on high-priced programs they offer.
  • Freelance services – Sites like Fiverr offer generous affiliate commissions when you refer new freelancers.
  • Software as a service (SAAS): Think of tools for conducting webinars or landing page software that builds squeeze pages.
  • Coaching programs – Promote high-end coaching or consulting services for commission rates as high as 70-80%.

The key is to assess potential commission rates and look for services with ongoing earnings through recurring subscriptions or renewals.

When you’re first getting started with affiliate marketing, resist the urge to promote too many random products. Carefully select a few affiliate offers that closely align with your website or audience niche.

This allows you to tailor your messaging and content to strategically promote affiliate products to your target demographic. Once you achieve success with your initial offers, you can expand from there.

Next, let’s explore some proven strategies to maximize your affiliate marketing results as a beginner.

Affiliate Marketing Tips for Beginners

Here are some tips to help beginners achieve faster success with affiliate marketing:

Create Dedicated Affiliate Content

Don’t take a scattered approach with your affiliate promotions. Create dedicated content like posts, videos, graphics, and emails designed specifically to promote certain affiliate offers.

For example, if you join the SiteGround affiliate program, write a detailed blog post reviewing their web hosting plans. Make sure to include your unique affiliate links so you get credit for signups.

Promote Affiliate Links Visibly

Place your affiliate links prominently within content. Don’t bury them in paragraphs or hide them in hyperlinked text. Make sure they stand out visually by bolding or highlighting them.

For example:

Here’s my link to claim your FREE trial of Hostinger’s premium web hosting!

Always Disclose Affiliate Relationships

When promoting affiliate offers, you must disclose your financial connection to remain compliant. Be transparent that you earn a commission if readers purchase via your links.

Example disclosure: “This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you.”

Build Multi-Channel Promo Strategies

Don’t limit affiliate link promotion to just your website. Promote them across all your platforms like email newsletters, YouTube, social media posts, online communities, etc.

Repurpose your affiliate content across channels for maximum visibility. Include affiliate links in your social media profiles as clickable links in your bio.

Capture Leads With Affiliate Offers

Convert more sales by offering exclusive discounts, limited-time free trials, or bonuses for signing up through your affiliate link.

For example, promote a coupon code or extended free trial only available to your audience for signing up via your affiliate link. This adds value and boosts conversions.

Promote Affiliate Products Visually

Infographics, images, and videos help you creatively showcase affiliate products versus simple text links.

For example, create a YouTube video reviewing your top Gear for Gamers picks featuring Amazon affiliate links in the description.

Don’t Overwhelm Your Audience

Avoid bombarding your readers with too many affiliate links and recommendations. Spread out promotional content focused on one offer at a time.

For example, dedicate a blog post to reviewing one web hosting company instead of cramming five comparisons into one post.

Monitor Performance Continuously

Analyze affiliate program reports to see which links are performing best. Double down on promoting top converting offers. Replace underperforming links with new products.

Continuously test new offers against existing ones. The more data you gather, the better you’ll get at optimization.

Success with affiliate marketing requires an iterative approach where you constantly refine your promotional strategies based on performance data. By following these tips, you’ll be off to a great start as a beginner affiliate marketer.

Is Email Marketing Dead?

You may have always thought that you’ve done all the efforts to better your emails. You may have followed all the rules, tips, hacks and the likes. But why can’t you still see results in your writing? Why do your efforts lead to decrease instead of increase? 

Maybe you’re doing something wrong. But then you think, “it’s impossible to do something wrong, I followed all the rules.” But what if it’s the rule you’ve been following that’s making things wrong for all your email marketing efforts?  

Many ask – is email marketing dead?

Email is alive and well for those that follow a couple of the principals.

Let’s dig in.

First, you think you’re so in demand. 

Thinking that your content is what everyone wants to read is just wrong, although that’s the ideal thing when we write emails. You can’t expect everyone to like your email marketing content.

The reality is that not everyone wants to read content we write, some people can live without it – this is totally normal. As long as you set your goals and focus on those who do like what you’re providing, you’re good to go. 

Take time to know and rethink a thousand times who your target audience really is. It’s okay to ask. Never be hesitant and conduct surveys, or forums and ask feedback regularly but not annoyingly. Also make you sure to find out what they’re facing, think about how your content will help them solve these. 

Ask about the products or services that will benefit them. According to Think Tank Lab, you should take in consideration what the audience wants instead of what you want to write about – that way they are looking for more of you content instead of feeling like it’s being pushed down their throats. 

Secondly, your emails are not on your subscribers’ inbox

You’re emails are getting through, that’s for sure. But where? There’s inbox filtering especially with popular email services like Gmail. This may put your content in the Promotions, Updates, or Social folder. And mostly only those at the Primary or those dubbed as Important are read by your subscribers. They are automatically filtered into those folders when they do not have something personal. 

How personal could you get just to land on the Primary or Important folder?

You don’t have to go too personal at all, but you have to have a personal engagement with the reader. What does personal engagement mean? It doesn’t mean you should focus on interpersonal conversations, but more on getting them to click the links you’ve embedded on your content.

By clicking on these, you will direct them to engaging to your company website and socials. This is also an opportunity to entertain their questions and talk to them, like you don’t have a barrier. 

Take note that providing more content will more likely lead to your subscribers opening your emails. The greater the opportunity for them to click through more information you provide, which will also include feedback and deals, the more time you’ll avoid the inbox filtering mechanisms. 

It will always be about engagement in the end. Having high engagement with your audience will yield better reputation with email services. As more and more of your audience open their emails, the more you gain trust among the services.  Why? This sends signals to the services that people actually read and like content you write. 

Having a good reputation and building trust through engagement is the best way to keep your subscribers and make them want and need what you provide.  

Your email marketing service provider is also a crucial selection. You need to read more about the different service providers, considering the pros and cons of each one. According to Tom Kulzer, the CEO of AWeber, “When considering a provider, you need to make sure they have solid reputation management systems in place. Here are five key questions to ask. If not, it doesn’t matter how awesome your content is, it has higher potential of not getting delivered to the primary inbox as you would expect or hope.” 

These are the most common misconceptions that make our email marketing efforts fail. The ability to identifying these will boost your content easily. Make sure you avoid doing these. Instead try the tips we’ve provided! 

4 Strategies For Creating Your First Sales Funnel

The accomplishment of a company depends on its sales funnel strategies. Proper planning is needed in order to maintain long-term affluence.

Sales funnel strategies are the backbone of the sales and marketing strategies of your company. It attracts visitors and converts them into customers. Without having good marketing and sales strategies, your business will eventually fail.

Therefore, creating a sales funnel is the most essential thing you can do for your business especially when it comes to opening up the traffic floodgates with paid ads.

Before moving forward on how you can create your first sales funnel, you should first be aware of what actually a sales funnel is?

What is a sales funnel?

Also known as a revenue funnel or sales process, sales funnel is a marketing term. It is referred to as a buying process where companies lead their customers through when purchasing products. In simple terms, it is a planned marketing strategy where companies convert their potential buyers into customers. The primary goal of the entire sales funnel is to solve the problems of your customers.

Just like its name, it is usually represented by a funnel-shaped diagram. A sales funnel is primarily divided into four steps namely

  • Awareness Phase- The first stage of the sales funnel is the awareness stage where your prospects become aware of your products or services. On the way of finding the solution for their problems, they enter into awareness stage through various means such as ebook downloads, email newsletter signups, online offer and so on.
  • Interest Phase- It is the stage where your leads become qualified. You get to know more about your prospects by asking them questions and helping them with the right solutions for them.
  • Evaluation or Decision Phase- This is a crucial stage as getting prospective buyers to make a decision is not an easy task. You have to make a lot of efforts to convince your buyer’s why they should go with your products or services.
  • Action Phase- It is the final stage of sales funnel where buyers take an action you are aiming them to perform. A stage where the prospects purchase your goods or services and become your loyal customer.

Moving people from these areas requires software and there’s a flood to hit the market, however none are quite like the Kartra platform we’ve recently tested for building out a complete campaigns and they’ve currently put together Katra trial pricing that makes it affordable for even beginners.

Now you know the importance of sales funnel, let’s find out what are the 4 tips for creating your first sales funnel

1. Create a landing page for your product or service

Your landing page will be the first impression your prospect will come across when they come after clicking on your ad or other content. It is a primary element of your sales funnel without which you can’t make a sale. Therefore, create a beautiful and appealing landing page. You must carefully design your landing in such a way that your buyer should know where they have to go from one point to another at your website. In addition to that, various companies have different landing page purposes such as some wants to sell their product or services, some want their prospects to download their ebook, and some wants them to watch their informative videos. However, if you’re selling any product or services, make sure for each product or services you have a dedicated landing page. Few things to keep in mind while creating a landing page are:

  • The headline of your landing page must match with the ad linked to it.
  • You CTA’s should be bold and appealing that convey them exactly what they have to do next whether it is signing up, buy now, get my free ebook, etc.
  • You may use video on your landing page to increase the conversion rate.

2. Drive traffic to your landing page

A high-quality landing page without any traffic will not help you in making sales. Therefore, you need to work harder to drive traffic to your landing page. You need to make a strategy so that your potential customers can move onto the next step of your sales funnel. Furthermore, there are several methods you can drive traffic to your landing page according to your goal, audience, and budget.

  • PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads- This is one of the popular ways among the marketers to generate drive as it can be reached on a variety of channels and networks. You can create your ads on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, or on Google Adwords.
  • Social Media- Social media channels are a great way to reach to the potential buyers in the beginning and middle of the sales funnel.
  • Content marketing- You may also drive traffic through blog posts, email, and case studies.

3. Create a lead magnet to collect email address

The next step you should do is create content that attracts your visitors. You need to target them with the content they are looking for. Offer them the solution to their problem.

Also, mention why your solution will solve their problem is the best one. Send them an ebook, guides, cheat sheet, pdf, checklist or any other resources they are looking for.

Additionally, creating lead magnets helps you in providing something valuable to your prospects. Moreover, you get the email address of your prospects which helps you with further marketing. If you have the email id of your potential buyer, you can easily persuade them to buy your products or services by sending them more information.

4. Set up an email marketing drip campaign

Setting up email marketing is the next step in your sales funnels. It builds a strong relationship between you and your potential customers. Send them an email by providing amazing content to them. Moreover, this will help them in making a purchasing decision. The goal of email marketing drip campaign is to remind the customers about your product or services frequently. A normal email marketing campaign consists of

  • Welcome Email which consists thank you mail to the prospect for showing interest to the product or services
  • An email which offers freebies, giveaways, ebook, checklist, etc.
  • In this email include reviews or testimonials about your product or services.
  • Send the email to let your potential buyer know how your product or services has benefited your customers. How it will help them in solving their problems.
  • The final email which includes hard sell. 

To conclude, creating a sales funnel may require a lot of time and effort without the right software.

However, if you do it correctly, you will end up gaining a lot of profits for your business. Just remember the key to build the best sales funnel starts from top and moves towards the bottom.