What is Affiliate marketing and how you can start on affiliate marketing

What is Affiliate marketing?

If you have started a blog or started a youtube channel, you might have come across this term. Affiliate marketing is a way to earn from your blog or YouTube channel other than ads. But what is it?

Suppose you were on a vacation, you reached there, you book a cab and asked him to show you a hotel. The cab driver took you to a hotel, you liked the hotel and booked it. You enjoyed your vacation and get back. But, the driver, who took you to the hotel got a commission from the hotel. That is Affiliate Marketing.

So, in simple words, affiliate marketing is a marketing model in which you will get a commission from a company for driving traffic or for leads to their products.

You will get a separate URL that is redirected to the product page.

The best part of affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to worry about anything. Just bring traffic to the product. If you are recommending the product, ask the readers to check it using your URL, if someone purchases it, you will get a commission.

Which affiliate marketing is best:

There is not a single affiliate product that we can say is the best of all. It also depends on your niche. E.g. If your website is on physical products, you can go with Amazon affiliate. Amazon affiliate is a popular affiliate program and a good percent of my affiliate income comes from Amazon affiliate.

The main advantage of amazon affiliate is that you will earn revenue for any item the person buys, not only the item you are referring to. For example, if you are referring to a light bulb, someone clicked on your affiliate link for the light bulb and bought a laptop, you will earn for the laptop.

There are many other affiliate programs for physical products. The commission of the amazon affiliate program is low as compared to other affiliates. If you are recommending a product, and you see that this product page is getting traffic, you can start looking for a direct affiliate for this product. Most product has their affiliate and commission is higher than Amazon. Also, never put all eggs in one basket :)

can affiliate marketing be done without a website:

Yes, you can! Building a website or blog is what I recommend, but you can also promote a product without a website. For example, you can create a youtube channel and do a review of a products. In the description of the video, you can add the affiliate link for that product’s home page. If someone likes that video, he/she will surely click on that link to check for the price, features, etc. You will get a commission if someone purchases it.

Similarly, if you have an Instagram account with a good number of followers, you can promote products here as well. Instagram has some restrictions and user is not allowed to post affiliate links below a post. But, you can put the link in your bio description and mention that in the post. If someone visits your bio, they can follow the link to buy that product and you will earn an affiliate commission.

where to start affiliate marketing:

You can start affiliate marketing in many ways. It depends on what you love. Do you love writing or _talkin_g? If you love writing, you can start a blog and keep writing posts. And, if you love talking, you can start a YouTube channel.

Pick a topic that you love. Blogging or YouTube takes time to grow. You are not going to make money from the first day you start. It can take months or sometimes years before you get a good amount of traffic. Don’t worry about this. Most people fail for the first time. Just start and keep learning.

why affiliate marketing is the best:

Affiliate marketing and advertising: these two are the primary sources of income for most blogs. It depends on the niche of the blog. Not all blog niches are good for affiliate marketing. For example, if you add affiliate links on a general topic news site and a product review site, the latter will generate more income for the same amount of traffic.

Similarly, _advertisin_g also depends on many factors like your niche, your traffic country, etc. Traffic from the US and UK countries normally gives more ad revenue than most Asian countries. In short, both have pros and cons.

Affiliate marketing is better than advertising. Because, to earn a good amount of income from ads from a blog, you will require a huge number of traffic. Which will take a couple of months to years. If you can earn that amount of traffic in a blog monetized with an affiliate, there is a good chance that your income will be more than advertising.

One more thing I love about affiliate marketing is that advertising affects on site-speed. Site speed is another factor that Google considers for ranking and with a slow site, the bounce rate will increase.

It is on your niche what you want to use. Affiliate or advertising, whichever you use, don’t overkill. Use it without harming user-experience and the earning will rise automatically.