Affiliate Marketing: The Ultimate Guide for 2024

Affiliate marketing is a business that generates approximately $17 billion in revenue each year. In addition, 8 out of 10 brands have an affiliate program. This sector has been growing since the 2000s and this increase is not about to stop. 📈

Behind these important revenues are many companies, but also a lot of independent publishers. Indeed, many bloggers, youtubers or others manage to make a living by earn an income with this strategy.

The main reason this type of marketing is so popular is because it is a win-win process. And we’re going to tell you in detail how to take advantage of affiliate marketing to make money or increase your sales. 🤑

Affiliate Marketing – Definition

Affiliate marketing is an advertising strategy where the advertiser pays the publisher for each sale made. Concretely, an advertiser(company) will give a percentage of the turnover to the publishers who bring him a customer.

Be careful, affiliate marketing should not be confused with salesmanship, which earns a commission for each sale. In this case, he works directly for a company and receives a bonus. While the affiliate receives a commission every time he brings in a new customer, he does not work for the company in question.

Let’s take a concrete example 📝

Imagine that an online store sells kitchen accessories. To promote its utensils, the brand will create an affiliate program. It will offer for each sale a 5% commission on all sales made.

Thus, bloggers in the theme of the kitchen will recommend its accessories. 👨‍🍳

To do this, they will place an affiliate link in an article, video or other. If a user clicks on this link and buys an accessory, he will receive a commission, i.e. a percentage of the turnover.

For example, if a user clicks on an affiliate link that redirects to the kitchen accessories store and buys for $100, the affiliate will earn $5 in commission.

But in reality, it is possible to do affiliation with anything. As long as you’re selling something and you have a way to track affiliate sales, it’s good.

This way you can affiliate trainings, coaching, jobs, pools, software and much more!

How does affiliate marketing work?

As you can see, affiliate marketing can be used in many different ways.

👉 O n one hand, you can promote products and services to earn a commission.

👉 On the other side, you can create an affiliate program for publishers to promote your products/services.

Depending on the strategies, many things will change. Now we’ll explain in detail the difference between affiliate marketing for advertisers and publishers.

Affiliate marketing for advertisers

For a brand, affiliate marketing is purely a business strategy. Here, a company will look for affiliates to promote its products/services without the risk of losing money. We explain:

When a brand wants to advertise on Google for example, it will pay on a cost per click basis. That is, when a user clicks on a brand’s site via an ad on the search engine, the company pays a certain amount of money.

The problem is that a prospect may very well click on an ad but not buy anything. In this case, the company loses money, even if it attracts many visitors.

While affiliate marketing is a win-win process 🤝

Indeed, an advertiser must pay a commission to the affiliate only if the sale has been made. If a potential customer clicked on an affiliate link but did not buy anything, the advertiser will not have to pay anything(unlike traditional advertising). Thus, it is impossible to lose money with this strategy.

Affiliate marketing for publishers

For publishers, marketing is the best monetization strategy . In this case, a publisher will seek to earn commissions by recommending attractive offers.

To be an affiliate, you must have an audience. Otherwise, no one will click on your affiliate links and you won’t get any commission. This is actually the main disadvantage of affiliation.

However, it is also the easiest business model to monetize your audience. And yes, with the affiliation, no customer service, problems with payment processors, delivery of packages or other.

The advertiser takes care of everything. You just have to bring him customers and he will manage the delivery, the VAT collection, the after-sales service, etc.

So, as long as you have an audience, affiliate marketing is a way to earn passive income. 💰

How to create your own affiliate program

As soon as you sell something on the internet, you can create an affiliate program. Through it, publishers willbring youcustomers in exchange for a percentage of your sales. However, there are many ways to create your own affiliate program.

It is important to know that it is possible to develop an affiliate program by hand. However, this is a fairly complex and expensive process. So we won’t talk about it below. In fact, we’re going to show you some easy ways to create an affiliate program through third party platforms.

Use an affiliate platform

This is the path that many companies are advocating. Using an affiliate platform is probably the easiest way to create an affiliate program.

There are many platforms that can allow you to create your own program easily, such as :

• Awin
• Effiliation
• Affilae
• Netaffiliation
• Rakuten Advertising

If you use a platform, it will take care of the tracking, the calculation of commissions and the payment of affiliates. The only thing you will have to do is to set the conditions(commission rate, duration of the cookie, etc.) and give a percentage to the platform.

If you sell infoproducts, you can use the marketplace of the main tools dedicated to online training. For example, if you use LearnyBox or System.io, you can easily create an affiliate program from the platform.

Using a WordPress plugin

If like us you use WordPress for your website, you can create an affiliate program from a simple plugin.

There are several of them, but the simplest and most efficient one is Affiliate WP. The rates are pretty good, from $99 a year for a single site to $499 lifetime for an unlimited number of sites.

With Affiliate WP, your affiliates will be able to create affiliate links easily. This is the plugin that will track all sales and calculate the amount of commissions due to publishers. You’ll also have access to your affiliate program statistics, right from your site. 🌐

The advantage here is that you can have your program in-house, without having to pay fees to a third party platform. If you have a store made with WordPress, we really invite you to use Affiliate WP!

What are the requirements for your affiliate program?

The first thing an affiliate looks at is the commission rate. However, it is not recommended to set the commission percentage too high at the beginning. The best way is toanalyze the rate applied by your competitors and increase it slightly.

You can also add extra compensation and bonuses for the best affiliates(publishers love a challenge and will be willing to work harder for your brand)

There are several types of compensation for affiliates. Most of the time, they will be paid on a cost per share(CPA) or revenue sharing basis. You can also see the cost per click(CPC) as for advertising, but it is quite rare.

👉 With CPA, an affiliate gets a fixed percentage of a sale.

👉 With revenue sharing, an affiliate gets a fixed percentage of sales, for life.

Regardless of the commissioning method you choose, you are encouraged to be as specific as possible about the terms of your program. If you don’t detail the compensation terms on the presentation part of your program, most affiliates won’t make the effort to sign up.

How to find affiliates?

While many companies have an affiliate program, only some have responsive affiliates who work every day. As a result, how do you become part of the programs that attract publishers? 🤔

Well, if your brand is well known, you will have no problem finding affiliates. From the moment it is visible on your site, many publishers will sign up for your program every day. Unfortunately, having a popular brand is not for everyone.

👉 To make your affiliate program known, the goal is going to be to canvass affiliates. So, you’re going to look for all the blogs, YouTube channels, Instagram accounts or whatever, that specialize in your niche. Then you will have to contact them and present your affiliate program.

Soon you will convince some affiliates and if they like your program, they may tell other publishers about it. The hardest part is recruiting the first affiliates, but after that, it all works out!

How to make money with affiliate marketing

Now that you know a little more about affiliate marketing, we’ll show you how this business model can help you make money. Obviously, we will focus here on the editor part. If you own a brand and want to create an affiliate program, this part is not for you.

We will show you different techniques that offer the possibility to attract traffic and then generate commissions. 💰

Blogging

In the United States, more than 1 in 2 Amazon customers visit multiple websites before buying from the e-commerce store. Generally he will try to find out more about a product, get opinions from people who have already bought it and others. When doing research, a future buyer will come across several types of websites:

• Blogs, news sites and media
• Comparison and review site
• Forums
• Customer review platforms(TrustPilot, Verified Reviews, etc.)

Most of these sites are going to be affiliate sites. Clearly, the webmaster will talk about the product in question while placing a link that redirects to a merchant site. This link will be an affiliate link. This means that if a user clicks on this link and buys a product, the owner of the site in question will receive a commission.

Let’s take a concrete example. 📝

Imagine you want to switch to an online bank. The problem is that there are dozens of them, and each one has a different use. So, you go and look for information on Google.

Soon, you will come across blogs specialized in online banking(yes, it really exists!). In most cases, these sites will be affiliate blogs. That is to say, they will present in detail each online bank and in each case you will see a link to sign up for that bank. 🏦

Blogging is certainly the most powerful lever to earn money through affiliation. Indeed, thanks to natural referencing, your pages will be positioned on Google and you will be able to obtain qualified visitors every day.

If you want to learn more about blogging and affiliate marketing, we invite you to download our free ebook. In it, you’ll learn how to create an affiliate site from scratch with very little money. 📈

YouTube

YouTube is also a great platform for affiliate marketing. Indeed, as on search engines, you can find all types of content. It’s very easy to showcase multiple products in a YouTube video, then place an affiliate link in the description.

This is inherently the same strategy as blogging, but in video format. 🎥

Let’s take another example.

If we take the theme of online banking, many people will look for comparisons via YouTube. Here too, a publisher will present several offers with their advantages, disadvantages and so on.

For example, the youtuber Thomas Gio made a video where he presents 4 online banks. In the description, you can see that he places an affiliate link to each of these banks. 💳

If someone is watching this video and is interested in online banking, they will probably click on one of these links. In case he signs up, the youtuber will get a commission.

Affiliate marketing via YouTube canachieve very good results in terms of conversion. However, this is a slightly less accessible model. You will need video and audio equipment to shoot and record your videos.

TikTok

TikTok is the most popular social network today. And many brands have understood this, as they use it as a real communication channel. Most brands just present their offers via short videos. 📱

However, many users will do the same thing, but for the affiliate part. In fact, they will also present products via short videos, but with affiliation.

Following the example of online banks, many tiktokeurs will create a short video to present the benefits of a bank. Then, they will either indicate their referral code or invite people to send them a DM. Via private message, they can send you their affiliate link. (it is impossible to place an affiliate link directly on a TikTok video).

In this video, a user introduces the bank Société Générale and indicates that you can get 80€ by creating an account. He quickly explains how to create an account and, above all, which referral code to enter(his own, of course).

This affiliate marketing strategy is still little known and has potential in our opinion. On the other hand, the conversion rate will be lower compared to YouTube or a blog.

In reality, very few people watch a TikTok entirely. And even less will ask for a referral code or an affiliate link. But, considering the significant traffic that can be generated with TikTok, there is still a way to make money.

Email marketing

This is one of the most underrated methods of making money with affiliate marketing. In this strategy, you will need an email list. You can collect emails in different ways. Mainly via YouTube, a blog, advertising or others.

Once you have a well-filled email list, you can start promoting affiliate offers. 📧

The best is to have a thematic email list. In fact, if you have an email list of a million people that you got from a news site, it won’t be worth much. In contrast, a small email list of 1000 people interested in cryptocurrency will be much more profitable.

Let’s say you have a thematic email list. Let’s see how you’ll be able to do affiliate marketing.

You can do affiliate marketing to “generic” products. If your leads are interested in crypto, you can simply promote Binance, FTX, Coinbase and others. Usually, they offer pretty low commission rates. 📉

If you want to recommend high-commission offers, you’ll need to do affiliate marketing for infoproducts. On system.io, you can see a marketplace of digital products to recommend. In each case, it is possible to observe the commission rate and the offer in question.

For example, you can recommend a crypto investment course and get 70% commission on every sale. The reason we’re talking about System.io here is because many vendors offer pre-written emails. So, all you have to do is copy the emails and add your affiliate link.

Email marketing is a strategy that allows you to obtain a very good conversion rate. If you have an email list, we clearly recommend affiliate marketing to monetize it!(you can even monetize a simple newsletter with this technique)

Word of mouth

You must know someone in your circle who regularly tells you about good deals or offers not to be missed. Know that it is also a way to make affiliation. And yes, if you recommend an online bank to one of your friends and they sign up, you’ll also get a commission.

In fact, that’s how many people got started in the affiliate business.

On the other hand, we’ll stop you right there. Unless you have thousands of friends ready to listen to you talk all day about the products you want to sell, you won’t earn much. However, this method can be a good way to get started, especially with sponsorships in the online banking community.

Make money with affiliate marketing: the 5 step guide

Now you know the different ways to earn money with affiliate marketing. Now we’re going to present you a strategy that fits your needs, means and desires to start making your first money with affiliate marketing. 💸

Once again, we are more in favor of the “Affiliate + Seo” strategy that we present in our free ebook. But we’re going to introduce you to some other techniques so you can have several ideas to get started.

Step 1 – Choosing the niche

If you are starting out in affiliate marketing, you will have to focus on one theme. This can also be called a niche. In other words, you will specialize in a particular theme and talk only about it.

It is also possible to be a generalist and talk about everything at the same time. However, if you are alone, it will be very difficult to talk about several themes regularly without lowering the quality of your content.

There are many niches that are very profitable in affiliation:

• Casino 🎰
• Dating 💋
• VPN 🧑‍💻
• Sports betting 🍀
• Business 👨‍💼

Find the complete list of 33 niches that pay the most in affiliation on the Makers blog.

A niche must be bankable. Clearly, it must be part of a theme that has been making money for a long time, and that will continue to generate money in the years to come. However, we also don’t recommend that you choose a niche just because it makes money.

👉 First, if a niche is making a lot of money, chances are it’s very competitive. It is better to start with a theme that generates less turnover, but is more accessible for a beginner.

👉 Secondly, it’s best to go with a theme that you like. If you write all the articles by yourself, you’ll have an easier time if you enjoy this niche. In case you invest money and delegate the writing, it is not necessarily necessary to work on a niche you like.

Well, there are many techniques to find an affiliate niche. If you’re just starting out, it’s probably best to see what works and use it as inspiration. Look at all the themes that make money in affiliation and choose one. If you have competitors doing the same thing, that’s good news.

This means that this theme brings in money. Be careful not to go after a niche that is too competitive if you are just starting out. This is the subtlety of choosing a niche and why it is the most important step.

Finally, once you’ve chosen a niche, we recommend that you stick to it and don ‘t change the theme after a week. Otherwise, you risk having too much work and disappointing results.

Step 2 – Choosing an affiliate platform

An affiliate platform is a structure that brings together several affiliate programs. Through a platform, you will be able to recommend many brands, without having to contact them directly. There are many affiliation platforms, some are generalist and others are thematic(sports, casino, travel, dating, etc.)

The best known affiliate platform is the Amazon partner program . With this service, you can recommend any product on the e-commerce. In fact, it is the most used affiliate platform in the world.

The Amazon affiliate program is ideal when you are just starting out, but it is not the most profitable program. However, if you’re interested in getting into Amazon Affiliate Marketing, we’ve written a step-by-step guide on how to make money with Amazon Partners.

There are lots of different affiliate platforms that will suit your niche.

=> To save you time, we invite you to read our article on the 17 best affiliate platforms . 👍

Step 3 – Choosing an Affiliate Program

If you have access to big affiliate platforms like Awin, Effiliation or CJ Affiliate, you will surely find a program that suits you. If not, you can also look for a specific affiliate program. As we told you, 80% of brands have an affiliate program, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one.

In case you recommend brands directly, you will just have to find their program. For example, if you are doing affiliate marketing with VPNs, you will need to sign up for the affiliate programs of each VPN you wish to promote. 👨‍💻

If you don’t want to waste time looking for it yourself, you can use Affilisting. This service includes more than 10,000 different affiliate programs in every conceivable theme. Each time, you will know the commission rate, the duration of the cookie, the terms of registration and more.

Obviously, don’t go for the affiliate program that pays the highest percentage of commission. A program must absolutely be thematic and provide real added value to your users. However, commission is also important, because the goal is not to do affiliate marketing for free.

Thus, it is recommended that you take your time to choose one or more affiliate programs that are right for you. ⌛

Step 4 – Choosing the communication channel

This is also an important step, but not necessarily a crucial choice. Simply because you can change along the way or work on several platforms at the same time. So it’s really up to you to see which communication channel you feel most comfortable with.

What we recommend for several reasons is to create a blog. It is the most accessible and easy to set up communication channel. As for the budget, you will only need a domain name and hosting(72€ per year in total). Then you can write the articles yourself, 100% free. ✍🏼

The good thing about blogging is that your posts will get daily hits. Thanks to SEO, if your site is well optimized, you will have several visitors every day, and this on the long term. In other words, you will be able to generate commissions every day, for several years.

To design a blog, you will need several skills. Of course, you will have to create a website(the work is greatly facilitated by WordPress). Writing skills are also a plus, but you can also start as a beginner. Finally, you will need to learn about SEO. (Again, everything is available in our free ebook).

If you’re comfortable speaking and don’t mind showing your face, you can also get started on YouTube. The advantage with YouTube is that it will be much easier to create a community than with a blog. You can also expect to make a lot more views, but the income will be less regular than with an affiliate site. 🎬

Getting started on YouTube requires a bit more skill and resources, but it’s still affordable. Indeed, for thumbnails and video editing, it is possible to use free software. For video equipment, you’ll need at least a good microphone and a webcam/camera if you show your face.

You can also mix several communication channels. However, we recommend that you focus 100% on one platform at first before diversifying. Otherwise, you risk exhausting yourself creating content for different communication channels.

Step 5 – Content Creation

Once you have chosen the niche, the affiliate program and your distribution platform, it’s time to start creating content. To attract visitors, regardless of the communication channel, it is possible to create several types of content.

However, we will retain only one. The latter is the informational content. In fact, you will simply present a product and describe its advantages to make your visitors want to buy it. This type of content can be classified as reviews, guides, comparisons, etc. 🗒️

Now, we’ll show you some examples as well as tips for creating high-converting content.

Let’s take a concrete example. 📝

Imagine that you specialized in VPNs. To sell as an affiliate, you create a blog about VPNs, cybersecurity and more. In order to attract future VPN customers, you will create comparisons.

For example, on the site presse-citron.net, you can see a comparative article on the best VPNs of 2022. Right after the introduction, the site displays a table of the 3 best offers as well as a button to sign up and another to see the full test.

That way, if a user wanted a VPN anyway but was just looking for the best one, they only have to click to sign up. Next, Press-Citron offers a comprehensive comparison that describes in detail how several VPNs work. Here, too, a user can see a full test of the software if he or she wants to know more. Finally, the article contains a guide to choosing the right VPN.

This item is perfect and provides a very good conversion rate. We invite you to use them as inspiration to create guides and comparisons for your niche.

For this type of article, the following structure is recommended:

• Introduction
• Top 3
• Detailed presentation of each product
• Guide(How to choose, what budget, etc.)

Finally, you can also create product review articles. In this case, you will have to describe a product/service in even more detail.(We invite you to look at the Makers blog’s tests & reviews for inspiration). But overall, the structure will be as follows:

• Introduction/introduction
• Summary of the opinion in a few lines
• Who is the product suitable for?
• Features
• Advantages/Disadvantages
• Alternatives
• Conclusion – Final Notice

When it comes to creating content on YouTube, it’s pretty much the same thing.

As far as TikTok is concerned, you’ll need to create short and impactful videos. The problem is that no one will look for VPN reviews on TikTok. Thus, making VPN video reviews would be useless. The best would be to create TikToks that present the usefulness of having a VPN every day.

In any case, we invite you not to neglect the content creation stage. Indeed, it is your content that will allow you to attract visitors and earn commissions. If you offer irrelevant content, you won’t make any money!

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Now you know a little more about affiliate marketing. If you want to get started with the Affiliate + SEO strategy for recurring passive income, we invite you once again to download our free ebook.

If you want to generate your first money on the internet thanks to affiliation, you know what you have to do! ⤵️