Affiliate Marketing: The Basics
By Bryan at 22 October, 2011, 6:00 am
This is a guest post by Taylor Donohoo of PRMarketing.com. Enjoy!
Sure, there’s no such thing as a free lunch—but bloggers can make effortless money. Affiliate marketing is a simple and successful way bloggers (and those who have a site) can make recurring revenue. At present, not enough people are aware of the option or opportunity of being an affiliate.
For those who aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, here is a beginner’s introduction.
What is all this affiliate marketing madness?
Affiliate marketing is easy; it is a way to make money online by promoting a company’s product or service on your site. There are different methods of affiliate marketing. The primary avenue is to earn commission when someone follows a link on your blog to another site and buys something there. Alternatively, affiliate marketers earn money by referring people to online surveys or getting them to leave an email address.
These commission-based affiliate marketing options might pay you with a percentage of the sale or a fixed amount per conversion. A conversion is a clickthrough on a company’s ad that produces a sale.
Conversions are tracked by the company, so don’t sweat it. Sometimes the link you provide for the company on your blog will be embedded with a code that allows them to track your personal conversions. Another way a company can track your conversions is by providing you with a coupon code for your specific visitors. Either way, there really isn’t much you have to do.
Starting is simple
Selecting a company to affiliate with takes a little bit of consideration. You want to choose a product or service that resonates with your audience. As an example, being an affiliate with a company like Online Driving University would be a way to cater to parents of teenagers or teenagers themselves.
To show you how simple becoming and being an affiliate is, we’ll check out what partnering with ODU takes. If you visit the official Online Driving University website, you can find an entire section dedicated to helping you become an ODU affiliate; taking the guess work out of the process. Once you are there, you need to “apply” which requires creating a profile. Creating a profile includes providing some personal information as well as account information. These profiles are used to see banner statistics, orders, and payments.
After you have applied and registered to become an affiliate, you should receive an automated email welcoming you to the program. This email will have login information that gives you access to your account within their site. At this point, you get to pick from a variety of text links or banners that you would prefer posting on your blog. You can snatch the links and HTML banner codes right from this location and embed them into your post whenever you choose. What should you expect from here?
ODU’s specific program gives you commission when someone enrolls in a driving course after finding them through your site. If at any point you want to take a look at your status to see your sales, you can always login to your account and check. At the end of the month you should expect a check in the mail with your commission. ODU offers a 20 percent commission of the revenue generated from your referrals, which is actually around the average for the affiliate marketing industry.
Advertisers love affiliates
Advertisers appreciate affiliates because it is a great way to find a target audience. Advertisers also like affiliate marketing because they only have to pay for the advertisements when there is an actual conversion. Promoting a product or service on someone else’s site allows the company to increase exposure and overall sales levels without much work on their behalf.
Publishers prefer affiliates
It is logical for those who have a site or blog to make money off it. Choosing to be an affiliate is a good decision for both bloggers and those who own sites. Publishers that find a product or service that is relevant to their reader and audience can earn money without necessarily trying.
Why blogging is a good affiliate marketing base
Affiliate marketing may not be the only way to make money from blogging or owning a site, but there are good reasons why it is profitable route. One of the biggest reasons affiliate marketing works well on blogs is the relationship between the publisher and reader. Often with blogs, the reader has a decent level of trust with the author. With established trust, a reader is more likely to accept a recommendation for a product or service. To sum it up: the publisher recommends a product, the reader purchases a product, and you reap the benefits.
Considerations prior to becoming an affiliate
Affiliate marketing can be lucrative. The success of affiliate marketing relies heavily on:
- Getting traffic (high traffic recommended)
- Finding a relevant product or service
- Finding a quality product or service
- Having a relationship with your readers
Being successful with affiliate marketing also relies on your reader’s mood and your ability to write decent sales copy, but you hardly have anything to lose. Overall, there isn’t much risk with affiliate marketing. If you’re interested in becoming an affiliate, select the right product for your blog’s purpose and be patient. Affiliate revenue builds with time.
Great post, Taylor! You are an awesome writer.
Some affiliate programs present amazing opportunities. But like many things, they're not all created equal.
Seems that hooking up with a strong one like OnlineDrivingUniversity.com could really pay off. Thanks for the tip!
Can anyone recommend any other lucrative affiliate programs?
Pat – There are quite a few affiliate programs out there but it really depends on the style of your blog or website. If you put a product completely unrelated to your audience on your site you won't do well, whereas if you put a complementary product on your site you will do better.
Also, how much you make depends on the quality of the placements of the ads, the quality of the ads themselves and most importantly, the quality of the company that you are referring people to.
Sounds like affiliate marketing is the way to advertise these days. I'll have to look into it and learn more.