Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: The Only Guide You Need to Get Started
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This article contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no cost to you.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing for beginners: getting paid just for promoting someone else’s brand? Wait, can it be that easy? In a word, yes! Affiliate marketing is a business model that allows someone to get paid by sharing a unique link to a brand’s product or service.
When someone clicks or buys, you win. Even the beginner affiliate marketer can either be paid when someone signs up for a trial membership, purchases the brand’s product, signs up for a service or email list, clicks on the sponsor’s link, or after taking some other action. If you have a social media presence, family or friends to email, or you’ve been to sites like Quora or Reddit, you have a good shot at making money with this very popular business.
Imagine getting paid just for sharing a great product or service to an eager audience. Affiliate marketing for beginners is by far one of the cheapest and easiest ways to start earning passive income (at the end you’ll see why I have to further explain the word easy). Let’s see how you can get a piece of the affiliate marketing pie.
If you’ve ever tried to make money with affiliate marketing as a beginner I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s a bit of a mystery!
How are people making money with this? Keep reading and I’ll shed some light on this to make it easy to get started.
Affiliate Networks for Beginners
First things first, how do I find affiliates to work with? Well, affiliate marketers find opportunities to work with brands in one of two ways: either through an affiliate network or by partnering with the brand directly.
Affiliate networks allow you to apply with one main hub, giving you access to hundreds of brands at once. Once you’ve signed up with a network you will generally have to apply or request to partner with each specific brand. While there is an application process for most brands within a network, many are very easy to join. We’ll cover the easiest networks to join as a beginner a little later.
As a part of the application process, you will at a minimum, have to provide your name, contact information, tax withholding information, and most ask how you plan to promote their brand. If you plan to promote brands in blog posts or with an email list, you can state that.
The brand may ask for a website if you have one, and how many followers or visitors to your website or social media platforms. Don’t be discouraged if you’re just starting out. This doesn’t matter for a lot of brands.
Joining Affiliate Programs Without an Affiliate Network
While there are many brands that belong to affiliate networks, many do not. For these companies, you can simply do a Google search for the company + affiliate program. Or you can go to each company’s website and look in the footer. Many times there is a link there for affiliates or partners. If you click there you will either be taken to their affiliate network or their own affiliate program.
Best Affiliate Networks
The most popular affiliate networks with beginners are Impact Radius, Awin, Shareasale, Amazon Associates, and Clickbank, CJ Affiliate, and JV Zoo. They are all very easy to join and there are many beginner-friendly brands within each of these networks.
When I say these are the best affiliate networks to join, I mean these networks include brands without strict requirements and will allow you to join without having a ton of website traffic or millions of followers on social media. Perfect for anyone starting out.
Affiliate Marketing With No Money
It’s free to join the affiliate marketing programs I mentioned above. The good news is you can start affiliate marketing with no money. You may need money for tools you will need to promote your links, but it’s free to join as an affiliate marketer.
Some costs that you may incur may include design tools to create images for social media posts and other graphics and perhaps an email marketing provider if you decide landing page to create sales funnels. If you want to create an affiliate marketing blog you may have to pay for web hosting. We’ll talk about this later, as well as free options
for all of these tools. If you choose to use paid advertising to bring traffic to your offer, of course, you’ll have costs associated with that as well.
How To Share Affiliate Links as a Beginner
When you sign up for an affiliate program each brand will assign you a unique code that is embedded in a unique URL. You will share this unique affiliate link that will serve as a link to the brand’s website or offer, and it also serves as a tracker so the brand knows who to give credit for each click.
For example, you can create a free landing page and even send out broadcast emails free (should you decide to collect emails) using an email marketing provider like Convertkit.
You can also share affiliate links on social media platforms and in forums like Quora and Reddit and inside of Facebook Groups. Find relevant groups and find discussions related to your expertise or affiliate offer. Answer questions with thoughtful responses and share your affiliate link if it helps address their problems. Don’t jump in spamming everybody with your links, but offer them as a supportive solution after providing a response of your own.
If you want to join content-sharing sites like Medium and Tumblr, or Blogger you can also share links there free of charge. You can create mini-blog posts that include your affiliate links without the cost and effort needed to set up an entire blog on your own platform. If you did want to set up a blog, there are ways to create a blog with no money upfront as well.
You can also create email signature blocks with design tools like Canva, with affiliate links in them, and send emails to email subscribers, or friends and family, sharing your helpful product recommendations and affiliate links. Canva has a free plan and many of these tools you will need to create great promotional graphics are included in the free plan.
How Much Do Affiliates Get Paid?
Each brand has its own contract with specific terms of service. You will have to read each agreement carefully when you sign up so you’ll know how you will be paid when you will be paid, and how much you will be paid.
Brands typically have a pay threshold where you get paid once you earn a minimum amount. Some brands only operate in certain countries.
Other brands place a time limit on the cookies attached to the links so someone who clicks on your unique link must make a purchase within a certain amount of time for you to get credit for the sale. This is important. If a brand’s cookie is only good for 10 days, you will not get credit for the sale if they decide to purchase using your affiliate link 30 days later.
Affiliate Marketing Without a Blog
Do I need a blog? There is a big misconception that you need a blog to become an affiliate marketer. You don’t. A blog is a great way to bring in traffic so you get more eyeballs on your affiliate offers, but it’s not a requirement.
I’m sure a lot of people believe this because it’s true, there are lots of bloggers who use affiliate marketing as a revenue stream. And you can create a blog with no money upfront should you decide to build one.
But blogs aren’t the only type of content that can be used to promote affiliate products or services. Youtubers, podcasters, and other content creators are also benefitting from their audiences.
Traffic is the key, folks. You can’t be successful at affiliate marketing without someone to see and try out the product or service you’re promoting. Whether the audience is coming from your subscribers, readers, listeners doesn’t matter as much as the presence of traffic.
There are also people who are learning how to make money with affiliate marketing without much content at all because they are able to get traffic to their offer other ways, and if you don’t have content, you’ll want to know who they’re doing this.
Affiliate Marketing With a Website
With the surge in blogs and solopreneurs trading in their 9 to 5’s to work at home, affiliate marketing via websites has grown. Businesses with content are realizing how profitable affiliate marketing can be and they’re taking advantage of the traffic they receive already.
If you own a business, not even a blog, but an online business offering a service like digital marketing, you have the opportunity to offer affiliate offers related to the field of digital marketing. This could include digital marketing courses, SEO companies, keyword research tools, and products to help run a website in general.
If you can deliver relevant products that will resonate with the right audience, you’ve won half the battle! The other part of the battle will be making sure your audience trusts you and your website enough to click on the offer.
Let’s take a look at this case study. Imagine James runs a website for a brick and mortar men’s clothing store, called Claudio’s. Claudio’s sells men’s clothing and accessories on its website. In an effort to increase revenue, James signs up for three affiliate marketing programs. One for a company that sells men’s shoes, one that sells men’s cologne, and one that sells men’s razors.
James could add a blog to Claudio’s website where he writes about the top men’s colognes, one that reviews the most comfortable shoes, and one that explains the proper way to shave a beard. In each blog post, he could include links to their affiliate offers. Why? Because Claudio’s already has an audience that may be interested in these items.
The blog posts wouldn’t be necessary, James could just embed the links on the website, but the blog can help explain why customers would need each product, almost leading the customer to click on the links to see if they’re really as good as Claudio’s claims.
Now, recommending products you know nothing about is a big no-no, at least in my opinion. I personally do not recommend anything that I haven’t personally used and loved, or have heard rave reviews about. I feel like a snake oil saleswoman otherwise.
If you recommend a product or service that winds up being a horrible purchase, your audience will no longer trust you. What you want is for people to try the product you offer, love it, and come back for more great finds from you. At the very least maybe they will share where they learned about the product to get more traffic to your offer.
Affiliate Marketing With a Landing Page
Ok, so you have the affiliate product and you know you need traffic. You may be wondering how it’s possible to work with an affiliate program, offering links to products and services without a website or blog. With a landing page. A landing page is a one-page website. It has a URL, can be found online, and can be built just like a traditional, mini-website.
There are many amazing email marketing providers that offer landing pages. I use Convertkit and they offer great landing pages, even in their free plan. Their templates aren’t the most customizable, but if you’re just starting out they look great and are easy to use. There are so many other features that I like about Convertkit that I stick with them and make them work.
If you decide to go with a landing page as opposed to a website or blog, you’ll first have to pick a provider. Consider what you want to happen after a customer makes a purchase before you choosing a delivery method.
Are you just selling that one product or service as a one-and-done? Or do you want to collect email addresses so you can add them to a mailing list that you can market to later? There’s no wrong answer, it just depends on what you want to do. If you just want to sell one time, all you need is an attractive landing page and an affiliate offer.
If you want to continue to market to your customer in the future through email marketing, you’ll have more work to do. You’ll want an attractive landing page and an offer, but you may also want to create a bridge page or a squeeze page and a sales funnel.
A bridge page or squeeze page is simply the page that goes in between your free opt-in or lead magnet and the offer. This page captures the reader’s email address.
Sales Funnels Definition
A sales funnel is the technique of bringing in as much traffic and as many potential customers as possible, in the hopes of bringing them through stages where they will hopefully make a purchase from you, before exiting.
It’s called a funnel because the system is shaped like a funnel. This is a marketing technique where you foster relationships with prospects over time, with the hopes of making sales. This isn’t required to begin affiliate marketing as a beginner but if you want to warm up your audience to increase the likelihood of making sales, it’s worth a shot.
I prefer a system that more closely resembles a wheel that never ends. If customers come out the bottom of the funnel that implies they are gone for good. With a wheel, they may not be interested in your product now, but if you continue to nurture your relationship, perhaps they’ll purchase something from you later. For the purposes of this blog, let’s just stick with the sales funnel so we’re all on the same page.
What is an Affiliate Sales Funnel?
As we can see from the example, there are several stages in the funnel. First, someone has to become aware of your offer. This can be because they found you online through an ad, social media post, opt-in, something that lets them know you exist.
Second, show your audience that you have something they need. You can use this stage to determine how you can meet that need and give them real value that they use to solve a problem. Engage with them to show them how valuable and trustworthy you can be. If they remain in the funnel past this stage they may be more open to hearing how your product can benefit them.
Third, your prospect sees that they may have a problem or a need that you’ve identified, but they may not yet be convinced that your offer can solve that problem. You’ll want to show them that you’re the answer.
Finally, the action phase is where the prospect decides to make a purchase or not. You’ll want to make a strong case that your product is in fact the answer they need to help them.
Obviously, this will take a little time. If you don’t want to take the time to foster a relationship over time but still want to capture email addresses, you can try a short funnel.
Your affiliate marketing stages may simply take the form of a lead magnet, a bridge page that will ask your prospect for their email address to continue to your hot offer, and the affiliate program’s landing page that actually presents them with the offer.
All you’re doing here is using some type of lead magnet that will attract the customer. Once they click on the lead magnet your bridge page lets them know your amazing can’t-live-without product or service is just one click away.
All you need is their email address and they’ll be presented with the offer. Once they submit their information you’ll connect them directly to the affiliate’s landing page. Some brands do an amazing job of creating high-converting landing pages, so if you can get someone there, the brand will do the heavy lifting.
You can use the email addresses you collect to present other offers in the future.
How Do I Write A Blog For Affiliate Marketing as a Beginner?
You’ve probably heard the expression “content is king”. Well, as cliche as it may sound, it’s true. Having relevant, useful content on your site (like you’d find in a blog) is a good way to not only attract traffic to your offer, but to entice your readers to try one of your offers.
List posts, review posts, how-to posts, and “best of” posts can be used to fully explain the benefits of a certain product or service and provide your reader with an additional sense of security that the product actually works because they heard about it from you. Hopefully, your readers will trust you enough to believe you when you say the product is great.
But what if you’ve never tried the product or service? Well, I always recommend you only promote products you’ve either used yourself (and loved) or that you’ve heard great things about from people you trust. In that case, I would be honest about the fact that I hadn’t tried it myself.
Affiliate Marketing Disclaimer
If you’re in the United States or you serve an audience in the United States, there is a Federal requirement to disclose the fact that you are promoting a product or service within your content.
The Federal Trade Commission implemented Endorsement Guides that require affiliates to clearly state they are promoting products as an affiliate. This affiliate disclaimer must be clearly stated and placed in an area close to the claim being made.
For example, if you write an article promoting a weight loss program with affiliate links throughout, you have to add your disclaimer on that page. Your affiliate disclaimer should not be placed on your about me page or buried in the terms and conditions page. The disclaimer must be clear and conspicuous and as close to the recommendation as possible.
The disclosure requirement is not just for blogs, but anywhere you place affiliate links, including social media platforms.
What Are The Highest Paying Affiliate Programs for Beginners?
It’s difficult to state which affiliate programs pay the most because there are high-paying affiliates in every niche. In addition, one high payout may not be so high when you compare it to the opportunity to earn a smaller commission for many months with recurring commissions. I think it’s important to understand the different ways you can be paid with affiliate marketing.
Recurring Affiliate Programs
Some brands offer affiliates the opportunity to earn recurring payments for subscription-based services. Each month a brand’s customer pays on a subscription, you receive a commission. Cool, right?
Affiliate Payouts
Affiliate programs can pay you for new customer sign-ups, customer purchases, customer subscriptions, or any number of actions taken by new customers. Be sure to review the affiliate agreement to see exactly what would trigger a commission for you and how you would be paid.
The affiliate program you select may delay payout for 30 days or more. Know how long it will take until you receive your first commission and what would disqualify you from receive payment at all.
What if you receive a commission on a new subscription and that customer cancels after the first month? What happens to your subscription? There’s no blanket rule so make sure you know all the facts. That commission may be deducted from future commissions or the affiliate program may wait 60 days before you get paid, just in case that happens.
Several affiliate programs are not available in every country so also make sure you are eligible to participate.
Affiliate Payout Threshold
Many affiliate programs have a set payment threshold where you have to earn a minimum amount before you receive payment. This could be $25 or $50, or more. Another term to check for in the agreement.
Affiliate Cookies
Each affiliate program has a deadline for the amount of time you have to be eligible to receive a commission. If someone clicks on one of your affiliate links and decides to make a purchase a year later, chances are that would be too late for you to benefit.
Many affiliate programs offer a 30, 45, 60, 90, or 120-day cookie duration, or whatever timeframe they choose. The longer the better because that means someone can click on your link and come back months later to make the purchase and you can still earn the commission. Each affiliate agreement mentions this and it’s an important term to consider when you’re choosing what product or service to promote.
10 Recurring Commission Affiliate Programs
If you’re interested in applying for affiliate programs with recurring commissions, here are 10.
Email service provider
Each 30% on recurring subscriptions
Robust email service provider and all-in-one shopping cart platform for marketing small to large businesses.
Earn 40% recurring subscriptions plus 10% on subscriptions from affiliates you refer as a second-tier partner.
Email service provider for small businesses and entrepreneurs
Each 30% on recurring subscriptions
#1 bot platform for Facebook Messenger.
Affiliates earn 100% of the first 2 months of any Pro account
A social media scheduling tool for Instagram and Pinterest.
Earn 15% on recurring subscriptions
Online course teaching platform
Each 30% on recurring subscriptions
Graphic design tool
Each 30% of the initial sale and 15% on recurring subscriptions and
Shopping cart platform for online sellers
Each 40% on recurring subscriptions
Email service provider
Each 30% on recurring subscriptions
Online course platform
Each 30% on recurring subscriptions
Biggest Myths About Affiliate Marketing
You may have heard things about affiliate marketing that are just not true. Believing these myths can lead many entrepreneurs to give up when they don’t achieve the level of success they’re expecting fast enough.
3 Myths About Affiliate Marketing:
1) Affiliate Marketing Myth #1
Affiliate marketing for beginners is easy. Wait, I thought you said it was easy to do! It’s easy to get started. It’s not so easy to make a profit. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it successfully. The truth is affiliate marketing only works if you have traffic. If it’s easy for you to generate traffic, whether it’s on a social media platform, forums like Quora or Reddit, or with paid traffic, you will definitely have a great chance to succeed with it. If you are struggling to get eyeballs on your content, it will be more of a challenge. It can still be done, just give yourself a little time!
2) Affiliate Marketing Myth #2
Affiliate marketing=fast money. Most affiliate marketing programs will not pay you immediately. Even if you are able to get people to click on your offers and make purchases right away (which would be awesome!), most programs will not payout before at least 30 days after that. So if you need money yesterday, be prepared to wait for a payout. Check the program’s agreement to see exactly how long.
3) Affiliate Marketing Myth #3
You have to have a blog to be an affiliate marketer. You can definitely use landing pages. Try a service like Convertkit to try out a free landing page until you get the hang of it. There are more robust programs out there that will allow you to build an entire sales funnel so you can put your affiliate marketing business on autopilot but some are a little pricey. I suggest you learn how it works and learn how to get traffic, before committing to a high ticket funnel builder.
Affiliate marketing as a beginner is a real, viable way to make passive income. Put in some hard work upfront and reap the rewards later, like anything else. Just remember, you can create the most attractive affiliate offer but unless someone sees it, it won’t generate sales.
How will you generate traffic to your affiliate offer? Let us know in the comments below!