What is Affiliate Marketing and How it Works

What is affiliate marketing and how does it work? Welcome! Most likely, you’re here because you are interested on how this whole affiliate marketing and online marketing in general works. If you’re an Internet citizen like us, I want to help you to earn your first income online too! You’ll discover here how online marketing can change your life. This post will be a long read and is not suitable for impatient people and losers. Enough of the intro, ready? Here we go.

Affiliate marketing is an online marketing strategy in which you promote other people’s products in the internet and earn through the commissions you receive after a successful sale. The commissions you can earn through affiliate marketing can range from few dollars to thousands of dollars. Bloggers who have been into online marketing for years sure knows what affiliate marketing is, how it works, and how much profit you can earn from it online.

Online marketing in the world is fast growing. Numerous ecommerce sites such as Lazada, Zalora, Ebay, and Amazon offer affiliate programs in their sites. Most likely that you’ve already seen ads from these online shops on different websites and in facebook as well. Not so many people in the world have entered the internet marketing yet as it is just starting in other countries and at it’s infant to toddler stage.

Here’s a simple illustration on how affiliate marketing works online:

Affiliate Marketer or Publisher

• Creates ways to reach the target consumer of the product or services being promoted.
• Responsible for ethically promoting the products.
• The one who signs up for the affiliate program provided by the merchants or online shops.

Merchant or Advertiser

• Company who creates the products or provides services.
• Pays other people that help them sell and promote the business.

Consumer

• The one who pays for the actual product or service being offered.
• The one who is in need or interested.
• The one who takes action through clicking the link.

In a nutshell, an affiliate marketer creates ways for the merchant to reach its target customers. There are a lot of things incorporated in this and that’s the goal of this blog.
One of the problems I’ve encountered from people who are getting stared in affiliate marketing, who are really zero even in blogging, is the jargon used. They get drowned with the terms used in this industry so as a start, provided below is a list of common terms used in affiliate marketing and internet marketing in general:

• Anchor Text. Anchor text is the highlighted piece of text that is hyperlinked (see hyperlink) so that when you click on it you follow the link to another webpage or another website.
• Backlinks are links on other pages that will direct consumers and search engines to your page. They’re also referred to as “Inbound Links”.
• Call to Action. Usually in a form of button that asks your potential customers, readers, leads, visitors to take action.
• Affiliate Marketplace is basically the online shop that offers affiliate programs.
• Content is the material found in a document or publication. The material can be text, images, video, whitepapers, infographics etc.
• The term Conversion simply refers to the process of making a visitor be “converted” to a customer
• Domain Name is the address of your website, i.e. mybusiness.com
• Text Link is a word, phrase, or image you can click that directs you other reference web page.
• Landing Page is simply the page on the website where you want the people to land on. The very purpose of a landing page is to “convert” the visitor to a lead or customer.
• Niche in marketing terms is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The process of optimizing all of the possible factors whether internal or external to get high ranking web pages.
• Opt-in. When a person “opts in,” they’re usually making themselves available for communication with you (and/or your business). Usually, prospects opts-in and give their email address in exchange for something valuable like ebook or video materials.

Frequently asked questions about affiliate marketing:

Hopefully at this very moment, you already have an idea what affiliate marketing is and how it works in general. If you still have questions, you can just simply ask questions in the comment section below and let’s discuss your queries. Here are the common questions asked by people with regards to what affiliate marketing is and how it works:

1. Is affiliate marketing or online marketing Illegal or scam? Neither illegal or scam. There are many bloggers in the world now who are actually earning dollars through affiliate marketing. Reputable online shops offers affiliate programs and they pay their affiliates properly.
2. How to find products to promote? You can find products in well-known affiliate marketplace such as clickbank, CJ Affiliate, Amazon, and a lot more. You can join internet marketing forums and subscribe to some of the topics where you can get new products to promote.
3. Is blogging necessary to promote products using the links provided by the merchants? The answer is no. There are numerous ways you can promote an affiliate product. You can use pay-per-click or PPC or advertising to promote products but this is more like the cowboy way of doing things. Though these methods work, the best way to make the most out of your affiliate marketing opportunities is still it to make and maintain a blog and use it in different ways of promotion.
4. How much does it cost to join an affiliate program? Actually, there is no charge for signing up an affiliate program however, some merchants requires you to have a website or a facebook fan page or similar source of traffic where you can promote your products. This is the part that dictates how much you will be spending in order to this business.
5. What qualifications do I need to become an affiliate marketer? This is the good thing about this business. You don’t need a degree to start affiliate marketing. All you need is the willingness to learn, you are well conditioned and disciplined to do all the necessary steps in order to start. Having good copywriting skills and marketing skills will be an added advantage though.
6. How much can you earn from affiliate marketing? There’s no limit to the amount you can earn in this kind of business but only a limited thinking that limits your earning. The earnings you will be getting will be depending on the amount of sale you make.
7. I’m very much interested but I don’t know where to start. That’s the main point of this site, to give information to those people who want to dive into the world of internet marketing. We’ve gathered all of the best information all over the internet and added our experiences too so that you won’t be doing it yourself.

I’m hoping that this guide to your internet marketing adventure will help you not just to get started but keep you going. If you have questions, feel free to ask me in the comments section below.