What is an affiliate or intermediary marketing? Do you also like to enter this lucrative industry? Follow us in this article to answer your questions and start this work in the right and safe way.
According to statistics published by Statista this year, businesses will spend around $8.2 billion in this area in 2020, so it’s time to start today so you can be a part of this key and lucrative system.
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What is an affiliate or intermediary marketing?
Affiliate marketing as one of the subsets of digital marketing has been making a lot of noise for a few years.
Affiliate marketing happens when you promote other companies’ products and when someone purchases through the link you shared, you will receive your commission from the first company.
As an affiliate, you are a salesperson for the first company and organization, and you help them sell, and this company rewards you.
The best and most practical thing about this type of marketing is that you can do it at any scale, whether for large or small companies; as an affiliate marketer, you can promote the products of many companies and receive commissions from each one separately.
How does affiliate marketing work?
Each company gives a specific link to its affiliate marketer so that it can finally check the general statistics of its sales and find out through which intermediary marketer each sale was made.
When someone clicks this link, the link cookie is stored on the device. This cookie has two main tasks:
- It helps the first company to understand through which affiliate marketer this purchase was made
- This link usually has an expiration date, so even if the buyer delays payment, you will still receive your commission.
How much money can I make from affiliate marketing?
The best answer is that there really is no limit to the income from this method, and it completely depends on your followers, your target community, the form of advertising, and the level of accuracy and practice you use in it. For example, in 2017, Pat Filin, one of the American bloggers in New York City, was able to receive about $100,000 in commission from Amazon, which is truly unique.
But such people have been studying, working, and gaining experience in the field of marketing and content production for several years, so in the beginning, we should not have unreasonable expectations of ourselves and look at this industry with a long-term vision and strategy.
How to start affiliate marketing?
To start and do this, you must go through the following 7 steps:
1) Decide on a social network
Although this seems simple, it is very specialized in some ways. Traditionally and most commonly, you can start attracting an audience by setting up an Instagram account and creating appropriate visual and textual content.
Of course, starting a personal blog can also be useful in this way because it is almost free of charge and also provides you with a valuable audience.
Using YouTube and Facebook channels is also very useful.
Placing a shopping link in your personal Instagram bio profile and producing appropriate content (which we will mention below) along with a good call to action will quickly put you on the path to success.
2) Choose your suitable market
We must be honest that if you want to enter the field of humor or fashion on Instagram, your chances are reduced by the presence of a significant and powerful section of bloggers and influencers, so you must enter another field.
For example, movie reviews, book introductions, music, etc. have more growth and your progress will increase rapidly with different and attractive content.
Keep your topics interesting and hot and show your trump cards with special and different photos.
For example, when we were all involved in common Instagram topics, one of my friends started reviewing volleyball matches professionally, and now we can say that he is unrivaled in his field.
Now, he may not be able to be an affiliate marketer of leather bags, but he can work great in selling sportswear.
After you have become a professional in a specific field and found your audience, now you can expand your field of activity and increase your chances of choosing your target community.
Note: If you want to be a content producer in a field, be sure to choose something that you love and see the related ability in yourself, even if the competition is heavy.
I know many people who entered a field without interest and simply because of the low competitive atmosphere, and when they grew up and the work became a little difficult, they could not compete in it, because they had nothing to offer, and this was due to the lack of interest in that particular subject.
3) Find your affiliate marketing program
We generally have three categories of affiliate marketing programs:
- Marketing program with high commission and low number of buyers
This program is for small but profitable markets. Of course, if you are a newbie, you are not recommended to enter this program because your competitors are professional marketers with a history of activity and high credit.
- Programs with low commissions and a high number of buyers
The advantage of this program is that usually, the stores offer you their products in the form of a package.
You can get a 10% commission on everything you sell on Amazon
The interesting and good thing about these programs is that you get a commission on everything that is bought through your link, not just what you have advertised.
For example, you advertise a washing powder and your user buys through your link, but changes his mind and decides to buy a washing machine too!
You will receive commissions for both. So exciting!
But you need traffic and a significant audience to make a good profit.
- Programs with high commissions and a high number of buyers
These programs are often based on the needs of society and besides being attractive, they also have many buyers
For example, food or seasonal clothes;
The downside of these programs is that they only hire highly experienced affiliate marketers because they have a higher success rate in this area.
So it is not recommended for beginners to use this program.
How to decide which affiliate marketing program to use?
It depends on your market, skill, and expertise. If you are targeting consumers, probably lower commissions and higher sales volume are more suitable for you.
But if your audience is businesses, using the first model is very appropriate. The most important and most popular for the first type of program is the sale of hosting, domains, and services related to the site.