Welcome to part 2 of this 4 part series about affiliate marketing for beginners.
If you missed part 1 of the series then as a beginner affiliate marketer I strongly suggest you go check it out first and then come back to this part 2 of the series.
In part 1 we looked at a whole lot of critical things for affiliate marketing including “What Really Is Affiliate Marketing?” “How does affiliate marketing actually work?” “What is the Different Types of Affiliate Programs?” and a whole lot more.
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If you prefer to listen then here’s my podcast version BUT please dont forget to leave me your comments below – that’s the “lifebood of my business” and your feedback is always appreciated so much.
In this post we’ll cover:
7 Key Reasons Why You Should Consider Affiliate Marketing
How Can I Make Money From Affiliate Marketing?
What Affiliate Programs Should I Select?
As a beginner affiliate marketer you're probably thinking what the heck are all those terms about.
I truly understand if at this stage you're a bit overwhelmed and a tad confused.
But hang in there with me and I'll do my best to make this affiliate marketing thing as easy to understand as I possibly can – but if I don't then please tell me in your comments below.
I will definitely follow up with you if you want and do my best to clarify all this affiliate marketing business. OK?
Well let’s get started.
7 Key Reasons Why Should You Consider Affiliate Marketing?
Here are 7 simple yet very practical reasons why you should seriously consider affiliate marketing when you are first setting out to make some money online:
- It’s Cost effective: Marketing on the internet is inexpensive because you don’t have to spend time and money creating your own products as they are already developed by the seller. You don’t need a physical business location and you don’t need to hire any employees.
- You Have Global Market: Online marketing gives you the opportunity to reach and market to people everywhere quickly and easily.
- There are No Fees: Good news. There are no fees to join affiliate programs.
- No Storage or Shipping Problems: You don’t need to worry about storage, packing or shipment of the product. They are all taken care of by the seller.
- No Need for Customer Support: As an affiliate marketer you avoid all the time consuming hassles of providing any customer support or dealing with consumer complaints. The vendor does all that for you.
- Earn Passive Income: A regular job can give you a fixed income as long as you continue to work. However, as you grow your marketing skills as an affiliate marketer you can create a steady flow of income even when you are not in front of your computer.
- You Can Work from home: If you follow my suggestions and avoid becoming one of the 90% online failures by new marketers, you can make enough money to more than replace your current JOB.
Maybe it will make you smile just thinking about not having to go work at the same time every day or getting stuck in traffic. Working in the comfort of your own home is a very big plus for many affiliate marketers.
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How Can I Make Money with Affiliate Marketing?
There are no limits to the amount of money you can make with affiliate marketing. The amount you earn will depend on your marketing skills, your network, your email list and types of products you choose to promote.
When it comes to setting up a website one of the easiest and fastest ways is to use a WordPress blog.
If you’re technically challenged like me then pay $5 to some on Fiverr who can have your blog site up and running in a few minutes.
When you are promoting your affiliate offers there are different views about whether you should try to directly sell them on your blog
OR
use your blog instead to build your own target audience and then sell your affiliate products to your email list.
I much prefer the latter as you can see in this blog post called “Affiliate Marketing – Profit By Not Selling”
Here is a quick summary of 6 of the top affiliate programs to help you make a decision about which one is best for your affiliate marketing business.
What Affiliate Programs Should I Select?
ClickBank provides beginner marketers with some unique features that make it a really good place to get started.
2 key things about ClickBank are that you can sign up without having a website plus it offers lots of educational and service support to help you develop your website and build your audience.
Unlike other affiliate programs ClickBank is the distributor for its products rather than just being a middleman between you and third parties.
So you are always dealing directly with the product supplier and you don’t have to rely on anyone else to look after your customers and pay you the commissions.
ClickBank specializes in downloadable digital information products, which is always in high demand with lots of website traffic coming from people seeking that type of information.
JVZoo is a very popular affiliate network among people in the MMO or “make money online” industry.
Most of what’s sold on there is info products like ebooks, video tutorials, software, apps, plugins and things related to email marketing, list building, self help, product development and more.
Every single one of JVZoo’s products are digital downloads
If you are actually looking for make money online guides, WordPress plugins, or other topics related to internet based business ideas, then JVZoo has lots of these offers readily available to you.
If you look a bit deeper at this site you’ll see there’s also a huge list of non “make money online” related product categories to sort through but don’t get too excited yet though…there’s a catch to be aware of.
You see even though there are lot of links and options many of these categories are actually empty because no one has submitted a product.
As a beginner affiliate marketer you must be aware that quality varies wildly with this program and they clearly do not filter their products for scams.
Nor do they check the legitimacy of the sales pages provided by product vendors and the claims they make.
For these reasons alone despite the popularity of this program, I do not recommend beginner affiliate marketers starting with JVZoo.
As you get going you probably won’t want to limit yourself to just one particular program but I included some others here just so you can start to see the different types of programs that are available.
Over time you can start to pick and choose attractive elements of different programs that fit with your needs and experience levels.
3. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is another good place for beginners to get started.
Apart from its huge advertising and promotion platform, Amazon has its own warehouse service. It also provides a distribution service for the products offered there.
The Amazon branding also helps your affiliate marketing sales because many potential customers know and trust this vendor.
Amazon also has a huge catalog of products of all shapes and sizes that let you easily create your own finely tuned promotions that can be completely different from what other affiliate marketers have done.
4. Commission Junction
Commission Junction has been around for a very long time and has attracted many big brand names that you can apply for as an affiliate marketing promoter
The sheer size and reputation of this program is why I included here.
However, if you don’t have a website then there is little chance of being accepted plus there may be too much pressure on expected results within a 6 month period for a beginner affiliate marketer.
So the best time to apply with Commission Junction would be after you have established your website or blog and had some experience elsewhere as well.
Unlike many other programs Commission Junction only provides an advertising platform. It does not give you a product distribution or customer service.
So this means that you might have to deal directly with the companies you are promoting at times to resolve issues rather than being able to rely on Commission Junction alone and this may be too much too handle as a beginner affiliate marketer.
5. Rakuten LinkShare
This program is a lot like the “middle-man” model of Commission Junction but it also has many smaller companies that may be much easier for beginner affiliates to work with.
The main product offers are designed for particular lifestyles and hobbyists that will help you discover more highly targeted promotions to appeal to a specific type of target audience you may have.
One good thing that Rakuten Linkshare has for beginners is that it has the simplest interface to learn and use plus a “QuickTour” option that shows you exactly how to use the site. Very impressive actually and its definitely a place to consider starting out and gaining experience with this third-party advertising style.
6. ShareASale
ShareASale is another “middleman-style” affiliate program.
It has a great reputation for being one of the friendliest places for affiliate marketers to work with. They are much more people-focused rather than number-focused.
For example it even hosts its own internal social network for merchants and affiliate marketers to connect with each other onsite. This is a really great thing for not just beginner affiliate marketers but all affiliates irrespective of the experience.
But the website interface is not that easy to use and as a beginner affiliate marketer you could easily and quickly get confused.
So I would not recommend you use this program until you get some more experience as an affiliate marketer.
NOTE TO BEGINNERS:
If you'd like my highest recommendation of what affiliate program you should start with then please ask me about this in your comments below
That’s it for this part 2 of this 4 part series.
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Don’t miss my next post for Part 3 that covers:
How Best To Get Started as an Affiliate Marketer
Two Different yet Successful Affiliate Marketing Strategies
It’s Your Turn
I know just how busy you must be so many thanks for taking the time to leave me your comments.
As a beginner affiliate marketer which affiliate marketing programs have you had some success with?
Care to share why you decided to become an affiliate marketer?
What have been your biggest challenges or struggles as an affiliate marketer?
What has really worked well for you as an affiliate marketer?
What were the key things you got from this post?
Would you like some help with your affiliate marketing?
