How To Start Affiliate Marketing Successfully in 5 Simple Steps

Festus Otasowie

Affiliate Marketing As An Online Business

Affiliate marketing is just one aspect of online marketing that we will focus on today and as you read on, you will know why. But before we learn how to start affiliate marketing, let us first understand a bit more about online businesses in general.

So let’s get started.

Starting a business is about having an idea that is valuable enough for people to want to pay for it. So from that point of view that anyone can have such an idea, it is therefore true that anyone can start an online business. However, starting a successful online business is another thing altogether.

For you to be successful you have to have the skills and motivation.

You must also have the power to focus on an idea that is marketable to a certain audience. You are not going to sell your idea to everyone. At the same time, you don’t also need everyone to make it work. What this means, however, is that you must focus on finding the type of people (audience) who would want to purchase your products or services. These are the people you then create digital content for or find a way to use the internet to provide a service that will attract them.

But before you can launch out on your new venture, you need to have a winning mindset. It is a different mentality than being a paid employee.

Being in business for yourself is not easy, but as my friend, Daymond John often says in his book, Rise and Grind, it is the ones who keep going who win in the end.

So now that we have cleared the air, let’s get started.

Why Learn How To Start Affiliate Marketing?

According to Hosting Tribunal’s Affiliate Marketing Statistics for 2019, Affiliate marketing spending is bound to grow by 10% in the next few years; it is worth $12 billion, and the sector is growing rapidly. Finally, it is believed to account for 15% of all digital media revenue. So learning how to start affiliate marketing gives you a huge opportunity of a profitable business.

Are you dreaming of breaking out of your cubicle and doing something on your own? Would you love to live the life that others are living by experiencing true financial independence? Dare to dream.

There are many ways to make money online. You can start a business that is based on a hobby that you enjoy, for example. Do you collect coins or stamps, are you in a hunter or gun club, or do you enjoy oil painting? Many times, the best income-generating opportunity is already something that you enjoy doing.

If you are tired of the same old humdrum life you have at work, there is a way that you can break out of the doldrums and try something new. The dream of early retirement is one that many Americans share. To be able to enjoy life and know that your time is yours to do with what you want is a great feeling. The challenge is in figuring out how to do it successfully and keep the money coming in.

Before you quit your day job, you need a sensible plan that will allow you to start Affiliate Marketing that will create a passive income for you that will continue to build on itself, while you are beginning your life of independence.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is the promotion of other people’s products and services for an getting commission from their sale. Affiliate marketing is a type of work that you can easily do at home as a part-time or full-time business. Since it is helping to promote other people’s businesses you don’t have to have products or services of your own to start. This is indeed one of the best selling points about starting affiliate marketing –it is simple and easy to start.

What is required is to simply create hype for someone else’s products through platforms like Clickbank or Commission Junction and choose the companies’ products that you want to promote. Please note that using these platforms does not guarantee that every one of them will allow you to promote their products or services. You will learn more about meeting their various criteria below as you read on. New comers will find a step by step tutorials from ClickBank University a very useful tool on how to get the best use of ClickBank market place.

You may be required to demonstrate your ability to generate an audience or to engage visitors with their brand. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get a specific affiliate. Just keep moving, and go onto the next one.

Then write blog posts, comment on social media, and post on YouTube while including your affiliate link to that company’s products. When someone purchases the product, you will make money. It is that simple.

Steps To Getting Started

Time Needed : 1 days 0 hours 0 minutes

If you are interested in starting a career or at least a side income source as an affiliate marketer, you can follow the steps below to get started.

  1. Decide On A Niche And Select A Product


    How to start affiliate marketing -choose a niche

    Before you can get started with affiliate marketing, you have to decide which niche to go into. You can find a detailed step-by-step guide on how to choose a niche here. If you would love to understand more about niches then here is some important reading to get you started understanding essential attributes you need to help you choose a suitable niche.
    It’s best to stick with what you know best because this will be easier for you to resonate with your target audience and understand what your audience wants. Explore ideas from hobbies you have, jobs or skills you possess, and other aspects of your life that may help you succeed in defining the area or industry you’ll focus on. If you are also developing your own business, make sure the marketing you do for others through an affiliate program is closely related to the niche you are choosing to work with.
    Look at what is trending on social media and YouTube for ideas. But don’t go with something that is too “trendy”. Choose a practical route based on your experience or what you are willing to research and learn and try to find a smaller niche that not everyone is in. This means your competition will be less fierce.

    Decide which products and services you will promote
    When deciding which products and services to promote, choose ones that closely relate to what you do or what you write about in your blog and other web properties. This will keep everything relevant and keep your market narrow enough to create a market for yourself.

    Know Your Market
    Another factor in deciding which niche to go with is by watching the market. You want to choose a category that is selling well. Check the following sites and eCommerce platforms and study the trends. Find out what is selling and look at the bestsellers’ list on Amazon as a frame of reference.
    Be sure to check out the following affiliate program platforms to learn more about each one works before beginning.
    Amazon Affiliate Program
    Google AdWords
    Clickbank
    WarriorPlus
    JVZoo

    Each one is different so you need to be familiar with what is required in each one. It is easy, though because they all have full explanations on the links we’ve provided.
    General Requirements of Major Affiliate Networks
    To save you some time, we have provided the following information on what is required and a brief description of how each works so you can decide which one is best for your goals.

    Amazon
    Amazon is not only the most prolific retail sales platform on the planet. It is also a good place to get started with affiliate sales if you have never done it before. They allow you to serve as an Amazon associate where you’ll be paid a portion of the sales they make when you provide a link to send your visitors to their site to make a purchase. If you are already an Amazon customer or seller, you probably already know how to manoeuvre around the Amazon platform. Check out their affiliate program and find out how you can be making money while enjoying the great product offerings yourself.
    Doing reviews for Amazon with videos or writing product reviews on the site and on YouTube can help you gain popularity and credibility for your work. Then it may be easier to recommend products to your audience to make money with the Amazon Associates Program. Anyone can participate but you must apply to be accepted. Some states do not allow participation in this program so check with your state website to see if you are in a state that allows this.

    Google Adsense
    Making money with Google Adsense is easy. This is also known as “monetization.” When you monetize your blog or website, you can make money while you sleep.
    Choose products from Google if you are already on the blogger.com site with your blog or simply sign up for a Google Adsense account to get started. If you have a Gmail or YouTube account, it is easy to get started with this platform. You have access to a number of affiliate sponsors through Google Adsense and Google automatically chooses the ones that match up with your keywords if you have a Blogger.com account. Ads are displayed on your blog and visitors click on them to learn more and you get paid for clicks, rather than purchases with this program.

    Clickbank
    Clickbank is one of the most popular affiliate programs that you can join. Millions of business owners, product developers, and marketers use their site each day to promote others’ products or to find people to promote their own. They just require a working bank account to get started, then you’ll have access to hundreds of affiliates that you can select to start earning commission on sales.

    Warrior Plus
    Warrior Plus may look like a forum (and it is) but it is run by some expert digital marketers who are dedicated to educating and helping affiliates and publishers to increase their ranking and results. Check it out to find out how it works. You have a full support group ready to help you on this engaging site.

    JVZoo
    JVZoo is a new platform that shows you how to promote or publish affiliate links to increase your income. They are ad experts and they offer a lot of help for beginners who are just getting started in the affiliate business. They have conversion tools that help you create profitable sales funnels to improve your results.

    The Content Marketing Component
    Doing affiliate promotions is about content, as well as selling. Start producing interesting content that others will find valuable. By providing rich content that your target audience will engage with, you will increase the chances of attracting the people who are most likely to purchase your affiliate products. Remember that you do not make money unless people purchase the product that you are promoting, so it is important that you talk about the product, service, and brand in a positive light.

    Create SEO that Brings Results
    Provide links from multiple sources to your affiliate link page. The more links that you have coming in from other sources, the better your ranking will be with Google. This means more people who are on Google searching for certain types of products or services will find your affiliate links. Make a list of web properties you can link out from such as blogs, social media, YouTube, and other sites that you can link out from. Incoming links from other sources improve the status of your affiliate links and attract more quality leads and traffic.

    Don’t forget the video
    Create videos and podcasts promoting your links. When you are a marketer of affiliate products, you need to pretend that the products or services that you are promoting are your own. In other words, be just as enthusiastic and vigilant as you would be with your own brand. People need to see your enthusiasm for the products you are promoting and feel that you are being honest with them about their value.

    Treat It Like A Business
    Whether you are setting up a way on how to start a business from home or just earn money online as a supplement to your current job, it’s important to treat your affiliate business like a business. That is what it is. If you put a lot of work into it at the front end, it will start to pay off more for you later on. Marketing affiliate products requires the right mindset to create the kind of hype you need to be successful with your campaigns.

  2. Join An Affiliate Network

    As you saw from the first step while selecting your product, you would have to officially join or “sign up” with some of these networks in order to be recognized as an affiliate.

    Go to one of the sites that allows you to do marketing for affiliates such as Clickbank.com, Shareasale.com, or Rakuten Marketing Affiliates to get started. You will learn all about how to start looking for companies to promote and get the affiliate link that you will paste in your page content. If you have a website on the Shopify.com site, you can do affiliate promotions from within your website. Just join Shopify if you want a website with them and then sign up for the affiliate program.

    It is best to choose the platform that is the easiest to use and that you feel most comfortable with. The process of affiliate promotions is not difficult, but you have to get your feet wet first and see how the platform is going to work for you before deciding if it is the one you need to stick with. Give it time to see what you can do before moving on to another one.
    Always think of your target audience when making decisions about your affiliate business. What advantages does the platform or network you have chosen have over the others? If you are new to learning how to market affiliate products, you are better off to start with the simplest method that makes everything simple to run, monitor, and adjust.
    The signup page for Clickbank.com is shown in the image below. It's FREE to join.How to start affiliate marketing -clickbank sigup page

  3. Set Up Essential Tools

    Knowing which tools to use and when to use them is half of the battle when it comes to starting affiliate marketing. When learning how to start an online business, you always have to keep your resources close to your vest, so to speak.
    Remember the lesson Steve Jobs learned and taught us when creating his Apple company: The computer is not the end result. It is just a tool, an extension of oneself that allows someone to create and innovate.
    If you find a particular tool such as an analytical tool like Kissmetrics or Salesforce that works for you, keep using it as long as it is effective. But if you find a better one, don’t be afraid to reverse path and utilize the new tool or way of doing things.
    Being willing and able to “think outside the box” is a key component in the world of learning to achieve success and make money online.

    Tools of the Trade
    Below are some of the most essential tools for setting up an affiliate system in your bid to start earning money online. Study each one and think about how they can help you to grow your business idea to a passive income.



    How to start affiliate marketing -essential tools

    Set Up A Website
    You don’t have to be a programmer to create a stunning website. So many web platforms do this for you today. The drag-and-drop features of most online web developer sites make it easy for anyone to create a stunning and professional website in minutes.

    In fact, you can get your website today by taking advantage of a discounted website hosting offer from one of our partners –Bluehost. Click here to get started

    But if you don’t want to figure that part out either, there are plenty of expert web developers working on a freelance basis on sites such as Fiverr.com, Guru.com, Freelance.com, and even eBay! Look around and message one of the web developers on these platforms to see what they can do for you. If you start on Fiverr.com, you can get a website job going for as little as $5.

    Just remember: you get what you pay for! So be prepared to invest more than $5 if you want the best quality. Freelancers have to make a living too and they tend to spend more time with those who are serious enough about their website to put their money where their mouth is.
    You don’t have to wait any longer before taking an action to get your affiliate marketing business started. Take advantage of this special discounted offer to get a website with our website hosting partner Bluehost. Click here to get started

    Time vs. Money
    Everything is a trade-off when you are trying to reach financial independence retire early, and create a passive income for yourself. It’s either your time or your money that you will have to give if you want to see lasting results. Think about how much you are willing to use your time and then consider how much money you have to invest and make your decisions based on this.
    Plan everything. Make a business plan and try to stick to it as much as possible. Always be aware of where your money is going. The number one reason people go out of business is lack or reserve to grow their business. Keep as much in the bank as possible but don’t be afraid to put some skin in the game so you can expand your progress.

    Obtaining An Email Autoresponder
    An email autoresponder is one of the most important tools you will need to start affiliate marketing. Next to getting a website, setting up an autoresponder is the next most important thing. As you get visitors to your website, you will need a way to communicate with them and promote the affiliate products to them. So an email autoresponder helps you automate the process of promoting your products to people who have previously seen your products or services. An autoresponder software allows you to send automated replies to your visitor under certain conditions such as signing up for your email list, purchasing an item, or when they abandoned their shopping cart.
    If you have an email autoresponder that is more robust, it may also be able to handle segmentation of your emails so that you can retarget or remarket to those who abandon the shopping cart or who are not purchasing or engaging with your site at the rate you’d like.
    In short, an email autoresponder allows you to let your business run on “Autopilot” handling everything from customer service issues, sign-ups, and purchases without having to physically handle every email yourself. This saves you an enormous amount of time and turns your business into a passive income machine, which allows you to ramp up your business to a higher level than you could do on your own.
    You need autoresponder software also if you plan to be away for an extended period of time or if you just don’t plan to be able to be “married” to your email! That’s right. Once you jump aboard the marketing train, don’t expect it to wait for you when you are running behind. Things move very quickly on the internet and people don’t wait around to see when you will be back.
    They will display a moderate amount of patience if a website is not available the first time, but they will quickly move onto your competitor if you don’t provide a way for them to get a response from you.

    You can use tools such as Constant Contact, a robust email autoresponder that helps automates your communication with your customers. Besides this an email autoresponder can send follow up reminder to customers reducing the instances of abandoned shopping carts. We do in fact also have a promotion for Constant Contact at the moment. You can get started by getting a 60 day FREE Trial. Click here to sign up

    Another solution is Mail Chimp which also offers a few extra features such as polls and general marketing plans. You can purchase addresses to mail your advertisements too with this service, as well.

    Acquiring the Right Landing Page Software
    Landing page software is designed to help create a successful click funnel that will take the visitor from the beginning of the customer journey to the point of following the links to your landing page.
    But it’s more than just creating the customer journey. It’s also about converting pages at a more efficient rate. That means higher ROI for you! One of the best landing page software programs we’ve seen is Growth Marketing Pro for its ability to generate leads faster that result in a higher conversion rate.

    You don’t need landing page software to be successful, but if you are new to the game, it will help you to focus your message so that it is crystal clear and you can create a path straight to what you want the visitor to do this way.
    There is always a danger that your message will get lost on your audience, especially if you are trying to tell them too many things at once. Focus on your message and weed out the extras, then create a great call-to-action that will tell the visitors exactly what you want them to do. If you do all of this successfully, you won’t need software to guide your visitors to your landing page.

  4. Start Promoting Your Products & Services


    How to start affiliate marketing promote products step

    Just like having a physical shop to sell products, we also need to attract customers to our website or our landing pages so that they can see the products and services we are promoting. This is termed traffic generation to our site.
    If our customers do not see these products then there will be no sales. It is therefore critical that we must devise a proper strategy that ensures our affiliate marketing efforts are properly rewarded.
    There are two major ways to do that which are described below:

    Organic Traffic (SEO) Strategies
    So how do you get organic traffic? For those just starting out, “organic traffic” is traffic that you get as a result of your keyword and other work that you have done to create search results that attract traffic to your website. Matching the keywords that a searcher is using with the words that you have on your website is a true example of generating organic traffic.
    You need to create “relevance” to your site also by showing that there is a lot of interest in your page. You do this by creating “backlinks” to your site that people click on to get to your page content.
    The more outbound links that are coming from other sites, the more the “AI bots” at Google think your page is relevant and important. Work on this on a weekly basis to build up strong backlinks to your content pages.
    Tools are great, but organic traffic is best done on your own when you have the time to build up high-quality content. As AI-oriented as the tech world is going, one area it will never achieve completely is the human touch. Getting superiority well-written content for your blogs, creating stellar podcasts, and bringing in topics that visitors will want to comment on and interact with cannot be created by software or machines.
    So you can shop around and look for any tools you want but remember the rule: The simplicity of the human touch is the great dividing line between process and results. Take it a step at a time and you will do well.

    Using Paid Advertising Platforms: Which one is best?
    There are plenty of advertising platforms out there today for you to choose from. They all have their unique advantages. For example, Facebook ads reach millions of people in your geographical location or you can make the search more general and use broader keywords to generate more leads. Google Ads, like Facebook, are all based on a PPC (pay-per-click) mechanism that only bills you for the actual interactions or clicks that you get on the ads.
    PPC advertising is best to use as you are getting started but you will want to always work on your organic results with keyword and link building so that eventually most of your results are organic in nature.
    Remember that organic results take longer to build but last longer down the road. PPC ads give you immediate results, but they do not last past the time of the campaign that you have set up.
    PPC ads are simple to set up. Just follow the directions on the site to start a PPC campaign. It is recommended that newbies start with a simple “engagement” campaign where you are paying for clicks. This is better than impressions and requires the visitors to actually interact with your ad to some degree.

  5. Performance Measurement Metrics


    How to start affiliate marketing -digital marketing metrics

    So how do you know if you are in the right direction after you have taken the 4 steps above?
    That is why measuring performance is needed as the last step.
    Some tools that you may want to use to make sure your PPC ads are performing correctly are Google Analytics, Google’s mobile-friendly test, and Kissmetrics, to name a few.
    Google Analytics is a basic free tool provided by Google that shows you an in-depth look (or a simple look), whichever you choose to analyze, about how your website is doing. You can drill down deeper if you want and look at the kind of people who are coming into your site, or keep it simple and just check the geographical location, basic interests, and age of your visitors, for example. Google Analytics is a necessary but simple tool that every site owner needs to analyze what is happening with your ad campaigns and how well your ads are working.
    The mobile-friendly test is also free and it allows you to run a test to see how response and mobile-friendly your site is. This is very important if you are going to keep making money with your marketing plan. The future shows that around 90% of all online users will be mobile users in the near future.
    Kissmetrics offers a free plan, but you can also move up to the paid version for a more robust metrics tool. Kissmetrics was developed by the guru of blogging and affiliate networks, Neil Patel. You can check out his ideas too on his main site at neilpatel.com. He has tons of free information about how to get started with an affiliate program and keep earning more money as you go.

    How much money will it take to get started?
    To quote Mark Cuban, whom I have chatted with online in the past, “You don’t need capital to start a business. You just have to outwork everyone else.” Cuban believes that hard work is the key ingredient too success. I agree, but more capital does help you ramp up faster.
    Think about how much money you can currently afford to throw into your new early retirement plan of working at home. If $100 is all you can afford to start, that’s fine. Set aside $100 in an account that won’t be touched. Then make a list of everything you can do with that money.
    Barbara Corcoran, the brilliant marketer who also stars on ABC’s “Shark Tank” started her business with only $1,000 and she turned it into a multi-millionaire dollar real estate business a few years later.
    So it’s not how much money you have, but how well you spend it.
    That being said, save back as much as you possibly can so you will have a healthy reserve that you can lean on as expenses arise or you need to ramp up your ad campaign.
    I have seen affiliate marketers who only made $50 in a year and I have attended a webinar where both of the marketers were pulling in $250,000 per month. Yes, you read that right! So the great thing about this method of how to start a business from home is that you can define how much you want to make!

    Free at Last!
    To quote Martin Luther King, Jr., “we are free at last.” When you create your own income from home, you are freeing yourself of the feeling of being tied to a job or a building where you had to step in place whenever your boss called your name.
    But you are trading it in for a different kind of commitment. Rather than answering to a boss, you answer to yourself. You have to learn to discipline yourself more than ever and perhaps work harder than ever before to reach your goals.
    You have to be extremely self-disciplined to make it work. But what you are getting in return is the total freedom of defining your own path in life.
    And that is priceless!

Tools
  • A carefully selected niche and related products
  • A list of affiliate Marketing Networks to choose from (Some are provided)
  • A properly setup Affiliate Website or landing pages
  • An Autoresponder software
  • The advertising channel to promote your products
  • Performance monitoring tools (Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, Hotjar etc)
  • General business knowledge to grow the business
Materials
  • Lots of patience, guts, focus and determination

How to start affiliate marketing infographics
How to start affiliate marketing infographics –Visual.ly

Managing Your Affiliate Business

Once you have chosen the niche, the products and services that you’ll be promoting, and you’ve gotten everything set up, how will you manage your business?

There are a number of different things you’ll need to keep in mind in order to operate and maintain your business. One is to think about the methods and channels that you will use to market the products you have chosen. People often want a perfect answer or some magical solution that will work in every case. But no such solution exists. You just have to try different things as you go until you find what works.

Pulling it All Together with Integrated Marketing

The successful marketing of a product or brand can be achieved in a variety of ways:

  • Video marketing
  • Podcasting
  • Blog content
  • Social media posts (and paid ads)
  • PPC and SEO

As long as you use these methods to some degree, you will be increasing your ability to grow your affiliate business on a larger scale. Be patient with yourself and measure yourself against your previous progress, not someone else.

Use every resource you have to increase your potential audience and targeted leads. As long as you are creating quality content, you should be able to attract the right people. But you should continue to study your audience to learn what they are about so that you will be better able to predict what they will do when you present your content.

A wise philosopher once said, “Anything that can be measured can be changed.” It is good to keep this in mind as you build your affiliate business and don’t get discouraged if you don’t see the results you want.

Again, Mark Cuban, a self-made billionaire who started his climb to fortune with internet radio, said that “there is no shortcut to success. Just keep working hard.”

He also recommends that website owners only change one element on their website at a time. If you change too many aspects at the same time, it may be impossible to decide which factor was the one that changed the outcome.

Some study is involved in making this work. It doesn’t just happen overnight.

You may have seen ads that say: “Financial Independence Retire Early.” While that is a happy dream that we may all aspire to, make sure first that you are ready to make this transition before you take the plunge.

For those of us who already do this every day, it is definitely worth the journey! We have more time to spend with our families, more quality work that we can choose to do because our time and our schedule is up to us. But be prepared to do the work if you want to really make it a success. And never quit your “day job” until you have been able to work up at least half of your current income. Once you have reached this milestone, you should be able to readjust your budget to where you can make it on a bit less income, then segue into your work-at-home job shortly after this.

The Biggest Mistake

In closing, let me say that the biggest mistake most beginning affiliate marketers make is trying to take on too many sponsors at once. In order to be successful, you need to narrow (not broaden your focus). The more narrow your niche is, the more you’ll be able to direct your traffic to your affiliate’s products and make sales. There will also be less competition if you choose a less competitive route.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing With Amazon

Just like many of the other major affiliate networks, starting affiliate marketing with Amazon is easy.

Buy why Amazon you may ask? The reason is simple.

As far as consumer products are concerned, Amazon seems to be the largest retailer in the business and so recommended as one of the best platforms to start affiliate marketing for beginners.

Here is how to start affiliate marketing with Amazon in three simple steps:

  • Register as an Amazon Associate

Visit https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ and complete the associate registration

How To Signup As An Amazon Associate
  • Decide which products to promote. You may here this is often referred to as selecting the niche. This simply means deciding which particular industry or categories of products you want to focus on. Amazon sells millions of products and for your efforts to be meaningful you need to zero in on a particular sector or niche

You can find out how to determine what niche to choose here

  • Generate your affiliate links (text or image) for each of the products you want to promote. See an example of these affiliate links in the video below:
  • Set up your affiliate website and promote the products

One of the very unique things about how to start affiliate marketing with Amazon is that you would need to have a website site. Amazon does not allow using other methods like CPC advertising to promote its products as that is seen as competing with them. Instead they would require that affiliate refer customers through a website for their Amazon website for purchases to be completed. While this may seem a bit cumbersome, it is not very difficult to do.

By the way, click here if you would like to quickly get started setting your up your own website. Or you can also see the section below on how to set up an affiliate website.

The steps described above are for people wanting to start affiliate marketing on Amazon as a marketer or as a publisher.

There is however also another way to start affiliate marketing on Amazon.

In this other way, you would create your own products on the Amazon platform. Here, you are then described as a merchant (or vendor) and other affiliate marketers now promote these products as already described in the four steps above.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing Without Website

Many people often ask if it is really possible to start affiliate marketing without a website.

And the answer is yes it is possible.

In its simplest form, here is how to start affiliate marketing without a website:

  1. Identify the product (or service) you would like to promote as an affiliate
  2. Identify the target audience that would be interested in buying this product or service
  3. Select how to reach this audience –This is essentially choosing what ad platform t use especially based on its ability to target the audience you have already identified in the preceding step.

However before you rush off, you need to know the following:

While It is possible to promote affiliate products by using other methods that do not include having your website, it is not recommended especially if you are a beginner.

Why is that the case you may ask?

The simple reason is that you start affiliate marketing without a website you are almost guaranteed to lose money due to the high cost of the other methods which almost always include one form of advertising or another e.g. CPC, Google Ads, Facebook, etc.  

Starting affiliate marketing without a website was common and less risky in the early days of online marketing when for example google ads were sold for pennies and competition for keywords was not as much as they are today.

Unfortunately, things have changed.. and they continue to change.         

If you are still in doubt why you should not pursue this course of action then consider these four additional reasons below:

  • Starting affiliate marketing without a website means you cannot benefit from organic traffic which is free

Simply put, all your traffic would be paid for traffic. Furthermore, with Click-Through Rates(CTR) for most adverts under 5%, you would have to spend loads of money without any guarantees of sale or profit. To drive this point home here is another way to explain this: you won’t be getting any value for about 95% on your advert spend. This creates a very high risk for any investment especially for beginners who may need to experiment before they figure out how things are really done.

  • No Room to start small and scale Up

As in many other businesses, people advise you to start small and scale up when processes are clear and a profitable path (how money is made) has been established. Starting an affiliate marketing business without a website means you do not have this option. You would have to spend money and lots of it from day one…without any guarantees

  • No opportunity to collect leads

Collecting leads (or prospects) is one of the ways to increase conversion and boost sales. Once leads are collected, these can be nurtured via email marketing until they become customers. Starting affiliate marketing without a website makes this impossible and thus reduces the impact of your marketing efforts

  • As already mentioned, starting an affiliate marketing business without a website is starting a high-risk business

This is the surest way to towards business failure and not at all recommended for newbies.

Interested in how to start affiliate marketing from scratch? Look no further.

If there is anything you have learned today it is that you need a website. So if you would like to quickly get started click here. You can also see the section below on how to set up an affiliate website.

How To Start An Affiliate Website

As you may already have noticed, starting an affiliate marketing by first having a website is the most recommended method of all the various methods of starting affiliate marketing.

This is the same procedure (already listed above) you would follow as if you were setting up an affiliate on Amazon or any other platform. However, the only difference is that you are now able to promote not just products from one platform such as Amazon but also able to promote products and services from many other vendors.

Every vendor or merchant that has an affiliate program would always have a way to generate affiliate links that are inserted in the relevant pages within your website to promote their product.

The merchant always has a system (usually an application) which then tracks any sales made via such link and records these against your name to be paid according to their defined payment schedule. For some of them, it is monthly while for others it is as early as 14 days.

As always the case, there is always vital information you would need to arm yourself with before you rush off and take the action:

Here are just a few:

  1. Some affiliate networks such as ShareASale would need to evaluate and approve your application as an affiliate. Some of the criteria they nay use to access you are whether there is a fit between your website and the selected products you want to promote or whether you are able to generate the level of traffic they require to promote their products.
  2. Level of experience: Some of the affiliate networks may require you to be experienced and already be making a certain level of affiliate sales before you are approved. That means if you are not already meeting or exceeding such levels of sale you won’t be approved as their affiliate
  3. Payment Retention: Always check that you understand how their payments are made. Some networks only pay when your sales have exceeded a certain threshold

Nonetheless, you will find many products within Clickbank, JVzoo and Commission Junction that you can start without needing a specific approval process. It is always advisable to go to the designated affiliate pages for these products and familiarize yourself with the specific requirements (if any) before proceeding with any steps to becoming their affiliate.

In a similar vein, stories abound of unscrupulous affiliate networks who default in making payments to their affiliate for reasons best known to them. In this case, always research the particular network if different from the ones listed above before you engage. Pay particular attention to where these are affiliate programs of individual companies rather than affiliate networks.

So if you are ready to get started with your affiliate website today it is quite easy.

Click here to quickly get started setting your up your own affiliate website. You will find a step by step guide to help you through the process.

How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing For Beginners

Many experienced Affiliate Marketers such as Neil Patel agree that affiliate marketing is likely the easiest and cheapest way for beginners to get into digital marketing as a business and start making money.

Making money with affiliate marketing introduces the concept of monetization of all aspects of your affiliate website.

From promoting affiliate products to placing ads on your blog website for products in your niche. There are very many ways to monetize your affiliate website and some of them are listed below:

  1. Google Adsense –Google places adverts from other merchants on your site
  2. Sponsored blog posts –Vendors pay to sponsor posts on your site or to
  3. Your website visitors see your review of vendor’s products on your site and make purchases
  4. You could also create products and services that you sell on your website or that are promoted by other affiliates on their own websites

As you would imagine these are but a few of the very many other ways beginners can make money from affiliate marketing. However, as a beginner, starting with product review seems to be the easiest although the process off getting high enough domain authority to attract enough organic traffic is something to think about as this takes time. Notwithstanding, as in all worthwhile endeavours patience and perseverance always pay.

The more you keep at it, the more you get better at it and the more you get better at it the money it becomes profitable.

Some Final Thoughts

If you are hesitating getting started or just think you don’t have what it takes, think again. There are plenty of Amazon millionaires, successful business owners, stock traders, and innovators who once wondered the same thing before they got started.

But remember that it is better to “Just do it” and start moving forward than to do nothing. Doing nothing guarantees your failure. Doing something at least guarantees you are not standing still.

Take another look at the various tools and resources we have offered you in this post. Then decide for yourself which platforms, advertising options, and PPC methods you want to use. Check out some of the software we suggested such as Constant Contact which will keep you in touch with your most promising customers and Salesforce, which can help you find the target audience you are looking to connect with.

Use the tools that are out there. There are plenty of them. But in the end, it is truly in your hands as to whether you succeed.

The Internet has made more millionaires and successful business people than any invention known to man. So decide today if you want to keep sitting on your couch reading this post or if you want to be one of them?

The rest is up to you!

Additional Resources And Recommended Reading

For further reading on this topic, we recommend reading The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau, or The Ultimate Guide for Email Marketing for Business by Susan Gunelius to learn more about email marketing opportunities.

Today is the best time to start anything. Remember that nothing happens until someone gets moving. To quote from the famous physicist, Isaac Newton, “An object that is stationary (still) will remain so until acted upon by an outside force.”

It is a simple law of physics that you can only do so much reading a blog post.
Now get up and get moving. You may be the next affiliate market millionaire!

How To Start Affiliate Marketing -FAQ

  1. What is Affiliate Marketing?

    Affiliate marketing is selling people’s goods and services and earning money in the form of commissions in the process. It is one of the easiest forms of internet marketing as you do not have to go through the difficult process of first developing your own goods or services

  2. How Much Do You Need To Start Affiliate Marketing?

    You do not need to have any money to start affiliate marketing since you do not need to first buy the products or services you are promoting. However, to promote some of the most popular affiliate products and services such as Amazon you would require a website.

  3. Which Are The Top Affiliate Marketing Networks?

    Some of the most popular affiliate networks are Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction and JVZoo. However, more and more organizations are now starting their own affiliate programs as a marketing strategy to promote their products and these are also quite profitable

  4. What Is The Quickest Way To Start Affiliate Marketing?

    One of the quickest ways to start affiliate marketing is to identify a niche area and start a blog website to promote related products and services in that niche.

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