Affiliate marketing is all about making money.Gobs of money.Money to do nothing.
At least that's what a quick Google search would lead you to believe, but as usual, the truth is a bit more complex than that.
Yes, you can make money with affiliate marketing. Good money.And yes, you can also make money while you sleep .
In this post, we will teach you how to generate passive income with successful affiliate marketing.If you're brand new, this post will help you get started.
If you're already interested in affiliate marketing, you'll probably still find something here that you've never thought of before. 🙂
Before we delve into it, let's start with a very brief definition.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when an online retailer pays you a commission for the traffic or sales generated by your referrals.
How does affiliate marketing work?
Affiliate marketing is a simple 3-step process:
- Recommend a product or service to your followers.
- Your followers purchase the product or service using your affiliate link.
- You will receive a commission for sales made using your affiliate link.
Introduction to affiliate marketing
Now you know the basic definition of affiliate marketing and how the process works, so let's talk about how to get started.
Many aspiring affiliate resellers don't take the time to plan and instead sign up for every affiliate network or affiliate program they can find.
They end up overwhelmed and overloaded.
Don't be like them.
Take your time and work through these 7 steps if you want to set yourself up for success.Complete the first 4 steps before you even consider promoting a single product. 🤯
1. Find your niche
Do you say "nitch" or "neesh?"
In any case, choosing a niche will allow you to focus on your business and help you with content.It also makes it easy to create targeted marketing campaigns.
For some people, choosing their niche is the hardest part of starting their own business, but it doesn't have to be that way.To choose your niche, just ask a few questions:
- What am I passionate about? Typically, the things we're passionate about are also things we're already informed about, which makes it much easier to create content.
- Is this topic big enough? Is there enough topic to create up to 100 blog posts?Otherwise, you may have difficulty with search engine optimization or have difficulty developing authority.
- Is the niche too saturated? Is there room for another affiliate in the niche?Before you jump into an overly popular niche and try to compete with people who have been around for a while, maybe try another niche.
- Is there money in this niche? Money is not everything, of course.If you are interested in a couple of topics and one is a moneymaker, but one is not … Choose the moneymaker.
You can check out a niche on an affiliate retailer like ClickBank to see if it's worth the time.
To do this, go to the ClickBank site and click on Affiliate Market :From there you will see the categories in red on the left:Clicking on one of the categories will bring up a page with filters on the left and the different products you could sell for your niche on the right: 
Quick tip: Sort by the Severity metric to rank affiliate products based on how much they sell for your chosen niche.
What you're looking for are products that have a high Severity score, a decent average income per sale, and that would naturally fit your content.If you find a lot of products you could write about, you've found a profitable niche!
2. Building a website
Once you find a profitable niche that you're excited about, you're ready to create a website and blog.WPBeginner has a great guide to help you choose the best blogging platform that will surely make this process much easier.
The main focus of your site will be your blog, but there are several pages you should consider including (and some that are absolutely MUST for affiliate resellers):
- About : Make it enjoyable and let people know a little.
- Contact: This should include any contact information you want to share with readers, advertisers, or potential partners.
- Disclaimer: If your site is monetized, this is where you share the how.
- Privacy Policy: Inform users if you collect information about them and how that information is used.
- Terms of Service: This is a legal page that limits your liability in case of misuse of information or services provided on your site.It also describes users' responsibilities for copyright and trademarks.
- Custom 404 page: A custom 404 page can improve the user experience.
- Advertising: If you plan to sell ads on-site, include an advertiser page with information about available spots, monthly views, audience demographics, and a contact form.
It is important to ensure that policies are clear and clear to avoid confusion and build trust with the public.
3. Create quality content
Now that your page framework is ready, you need to create content.
Some affiliate networks and affiliate programs require that you have already established content, site traffic, and monthly views at some level before accepting yourself as an affiliate, so be sure to read the eligibility requirements for the specific networks and programs you "consider before applying."
That doesn't mean you have to create 100 blog posts before you can even think about becoming an affiliate marketer, but you should have at least 5 strong posts already on your site with more scheduled.
New to content marketing?We have an excellent beginner's guide to content marketing to help you get started.And, check out our SEO guide to optimizing your content to drive traffic to your site!
4. Grow your email list
Yes, email is still the No. 1 communication channel for marketing.And it still brings a completely wild $38 return for every $1 spent.
What does this mean for you?It's worth 3800% to invest some time and money into growing your email list.
One of the easiest ways to grow your email list is by adding a popup to your site:
Don't worry if you've never done email marketing before; We have to start somewhere.We have a beginner's guide to email marketing that will take you from scratch to automating your email marketing campaign in no time.
If you're looking to step up your email marketing campaigns, check out these posts to reduce unsubscribe rates and segment your email list like a pro.
5. Choose affiliate products to promote
If you've done the work of choosing a niche, choosing affiliate products to promote should be easy!Choose products that fit your niche and relate to your content.
Where do you get ideas for products to promote?Everywhere, really: Promote the products you alreadyuse What do you already use and love?
There is probably an affiliate program for this.
Make a list of all the products and services you use and sign in to Google to find their affiliate programs.Then, write reviews and link affiliate links.
Do you like OptinMonster?There is a program for that.
Do you like WordPress?
Or maybe you're less into digital and more into glam.Maybe a Sephora affiliate program is more your speed?
Whatever you love to use, there's a good chance there's an affiliate program.
Promote products that meet a need
Listen to people interested in your niche.What problems are they facing?Are there gaps in the solutions that are already available?Find products that can help you and try them.If the products are good, become an affiliate and recommend them.Your audience wants solutions.If they work, they will be willing to pay for them.
Promote products your audience wants to know
Ask your audience what they're interested in and give it a try.If it is a good product, I recommend it.If it isn't, tell them.At best, you'll get sales.In the worst case, you'll gain more trust from your audience.Which basically means that there is no "worse" here.
Promote other people's products in your niche
Pay attention to other retailers in your niche.What are they talking about and promoting?What ads do they use?Check out Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook to check out #affiliate and #ad to see what other affiliates are promoting.
6. Join an affiliate marketing network
Affiliate marketing networks are essentially online marketplaces where retailers list their products and affiliates can find products to sell.The marketing network acts as an intermediary.As an affiliate, you should never pay to join an affiliate marketing network.
Here are some of the most popular affiliate networks around, but there are many more:
Do you want to start your own affiliate program? The Royale affiliate makes it ridiculously easy!
This WordPress plugin allows you to start a fully functional affiliate program from start to finish in minutes.You'll be able to easily track links, clicks, payments, and outbound sales from your easy-to-use dashboard, customized to include only the data that matters to your goals.
7. Track your results
You can use MonsterInsights to easily monitor the performance of your affiliate products on a WordPress site.
To get started, you'll need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin.Then, link your WordPress site with your Google Analytics account.
Once activated, go to Insights » Settings in the WordPress dashboard and select the Tracking tab.
There are several sections in the tab.Let's start in the Engagement section where you can see that Enable MonsterInsights event tracking on Yes , which is what we want.
Since you do not need to take any action in this section, we click on Affiliate Links.
In the Affiliate Links section , we will set our affiliate link path using the prefix added by our affiliate link plugin.
In our screenshot, we used "/recommend/" because the plugin we're using, ThirstyAffiliates, uses it as the default prefix.
Next, we'll add a label (we used "aff") so you can easily identify our affiliate links in your reports.
Be sure to save your changes.
Once you've made these changes, it can take at least 24 hours for Google Analytics to start reporting.
To view the data, go to the Google Analytics dashboard and click Behavior » Events » Top Events .Your affiliate links will appear as "outbound links" with the label you assigned to them.
Tracking your affiliate links in this way can help you understand which products work best with your audience and which can help you provide them with better products in the future.
Even better, you'll be able to use this knowledge to provide them with better content, increasing their trust and loyalty.This will make them come back to you several times.
If you want your affiliate links to be shorter and more memorable, you should look into a link tracking plugin like Pretty Links.
Pretty Links is super easy to use and turns those long, unpretty affiliate links into something readable.In addition, Pretty Links makes it easy to brand and advertise affiliate links, manage server-side redirects, and built-in performance measurement so you always know how links are going.
There you have it, folks. Now you know how to generate passive income with affiliate marketing. To continue attracting traffic to your site, be sure to check out these expert SEO tips!
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