Today, we’re diving into something that’s everywhere online but still a bit of a mystery to many – affiliate marketing.
In the next few minutes, I’ll show you exactly what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
And be sure to stick around ’til the end, because I’ll run you through how you can get started in 4 simple steps.
Eyup, if you’re new here, I’m Simon, and I’m all about helping aspiring entrepreneurs like you launch thriving and successful affiliate marketing businesses.
If you’re into that kind of thing and want to learn more, check out Wealthy Affiliate.
Whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been doing this a while, thisall-in-one platform will walk you through how to build a 6-figure online business and give you the AI tools you need to do the same.
So be sure to take the free trial today.
OK, let’s start by breaking down what affiliate marketing actually is…
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Simply put, affiliate marketing is a way to earn money online by promoting other people’s or company’s products.
You sign up to these online stores to become an affiliate, they give you a unique link, you then share this link online, and when someone clicks it and buys, you earn a commission.
You can sell stuff online without the products ever being in your hands or dealing with customer complaints.
All you need is a computer and an internet connection; you can work anywhere in the world anytime.
You see, with affiliate marketing, your job is to simply choose a target audience, find out what kinda they like to buy and give it to them.
You’re effectively acting as a matchmaker between people and the products they want.
It’s a pretty simple business model anyone can use to build a full-time income online.
Now let’s look at how it works.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
There are 10,000s of online companies you can become an affiliate for, like Amazon, Etsy, Best Buy, Samsung and Walmart, and over 550 million affiliate products you can promote to make money.
Let’s say, for example, you join the Amazon affiliate program and you want to promote this Gillette razor on Amazon priced at $100.
As you can see, Amazon’s commission rates are set by category. As this would fall under the luxury beauty category, you would make 5% commissions on each sale.
To get your unique affiliate link, you simply go to that product page, hit Get Link in the top left and add that where it makes sense and it’s relevant within your content, whether it be blog posts, YouTube videos or social media posts – wherever you talk about those products.
Then, when someone visits your website, consumes your content, clicks your link and buys, you’ll get credited for the sale and be able to see your stats in the affiliate dashboard.
Amazon will then deal with all the payments, shipping and that kind of thing so you don’t have to do anything else. You just get paid commissions at the end of the month and that’s it!
The company makes sales, the customer finds products they want and you get a cut of the profits – affiliate marketing is a total win-win-win.
Affiliate Marketing In Action
So, let me show you affiliate marketing in action.
Every time someone googles something like “best air purifier” and clicks this website, the owner of this website recommends these air purifiers on Amazon, Wayfair, Home Depot, they make money every time someone clicks their affiliate link and buys.
If the air purifier is $142 and the commission rate is 2.25%, as the affiliate you’ll make $3.20 per sale.
What? Is that it?!
You might not think that’s much, but use a keyword tool like Jaaxy, you see “best air purifiers” gets searched 7,500 times a month…
If only half these people click your website and buy, you’ll make $12,000 a month from this ONE piece of content alone.
Another cool example is this YouTube video that compares the best Sony cameras:
It’s already had 39k views and if you look in the description – yep – those are Amazon affiliate links so this guy is raking in $1000s in daily commissions.
So yeah, there’s a heck of a lot of money to be made with affiliate marketing.
OK, So How Do You Get Started?
Step 1: Create a free Starter account on WealthyAffiliate.com.
They’re your all-in-one affiliate marketing platform with website builders, AI content creators, step-by-step training and basically everything you need to start a successful affiliate marketing business.
Or check out my Wealthy Affiliate review first if you’d like.
Step 2: Choose a target audience.
Think about what your favourite hobbies and interests are. Whether it’s baking, basketball, birdwatching, board games or anything else, you can take that passion and turn it into a solid monthly income.
Step 3: Launch a website.
Don’t worry, with Wealthy Affiliate’s SiteBuilder this step is a breeze, even if you’ve never done it before.
Your website will serve as the hub and foundation of your online business going forward.
Step 4: Find affiliate programs
The next step is finding hot products your target audience needs and wants.
Head on over to Wealthy Affiliate’s Affiliate Program Search, enter your chosen topic and you’ll see affiliate programs you can join to start earning those commissions.
Once you’ve done all that, it’s time to get boatloads of daily traffic coming to your site, clicking your links and generating revenue for you.
I won’t go into great detail about that here, but follow this Beginner’s Guide To Affiliate Marketing and I’ll walk you through everything step by step: