Did you know Affiliate Marketing is the world’s most untapped source for generating passive income? Affiliate Marketing is a huge and growing industry. Understanding how to make money affiliate marketing in 2023 can be very lucrative to you. Affiliate marketing is still the easiest and most popular way to make money online for beginners. All you have to do is find a product, promote it, and if anyone takes action on your recommendation, you earn a commission. Pretty Simple! Yes there is competition, but if you are committed, you can get your share. If you are persistent, you will get results.
Why did I take up affiliate marketing? When I found the training and mentoring community I’m still with I knew very little about affiliate marketing. Now I’m rising in one of the most profitable and growing industries in the world, with over 6 billion in revenue per year.
Would you like to learn how to make money from affiliate marketing? Know it’s something you want to learn to do on your website but need help getting started? Consider this post a “how to make money with affiliate marketing for beginners” training written especially for you!
In this step by step guide to affiliate marketing, I’ll give you a comprehensive overview of what is affiliate marketing and how does it work. This guide is all about how to get started with affiliate marketing and how to earn money in affiliate marketing. We will cover everything you need to know in order to master how to make money affiliate marketing and earn consistent monthly income doing it. Excited? Read on.
How To Make Money Affiliate Marketing for Beginners 2023 – What is Affiliate Marketing and How Does it Work?
Affiliate Marketing is the process of earning a commission by sharing, promoting or recommending another company’s or person’s product or service.
In other words, when you help another company generate sales, you get a slice!
Many of us have taken part in affiliate marketing without even realizing it.
For example, have you ever shared a discount code or a link to a product or website or App with a friend where you will get something in return?
I have shared my Airbnb link so my friend gets $25 off their first stay (and I get that too). Also, when you refer your friends to take Uber, Uber will reward you with a coupon code.
This is affiliate marketing! So anyone can do affiliate marketing!
Let’s take another example…
Let’s say you want to purchase a Drone for you children and you to enjoy but you can’t decide which brand and which model to buy. Perhaps you’re struggling to even know where to start.
What’s the first thing most people do?
You go straight to Google and type in something like “Best Drones of 2018” or “Best Drones for kids”.
If you eventually bought your drone online, some affiliate marketer will make money because you bought that drone online.
So, How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
(Image source: CJ)
Affiliate Marketing is the process of earning a commission by sharing, promoting or recommending another company’s or person’s product or service. You find a product you already like or use, promote it to others and earn a part of the profit for each sale you make.
So you (the Affiliate/Publisher) earn commission each time a Consumer buys via your affiliate link to the product or service of the Merchant/Advertiser.
In simple terms, it is just recommending someone else’s product or service in a way that earns you a commission.
Consider an extremely popular online merchant like Amazon.com for example. You can buy drones, cameras, juicers..and pretty much everything on amazon. So no matter how unique the product (such as the latest drone), you can make money promoting it through an affiliate program.
In the case of drones, when you did your online research, the articles you are reading could be written by an affiliate marketer. If you went to YouTube, the person doing a drone buyers guide video may have an affiliate link in their description for you to click on.
So when you click on any of the links to purchase your drone online that affiliate is being credited by the seller and they’ll receive a commission. This means, a certain percentage of the money you paid for the drone will actually go to the affiliate.
For example, the affiliate wrote an article about “Best Drones in 2023”…
This post can be making money for this affiliate marketer even when they’re sleeping. That’s 24/7/365 because there will be people reading this post and buying drones online at any time of the day, all over the world.
Then there are two main commission types widely used by affiliate marketers: one-off transactions and recurring transactions. The above showcases a one-off transaction. A recurring action – for example, a monthly subscription to a service provider (like an email marketing service). So you can enjoy regular recurring commissions after each repeat payment made by the customer.
So that’s how to make money promoting affiliate products or services, just think how powerful this can be for you!
Then the next question is…
Would you like to do something once and get paid again and again and again?
In summary, for the basics of how affiliate marketing works, see the step by step guide to affiliate marketing below, showing you the process of how affiliate marketing programs work.
You can use affiliate links in many ways – on social media, on your blog, YouTube, emails etc (some programs have specific rules on what you can and cannot do).
You can use affiliate links in many ways – on social media, on your blog, YouTube, emails etc (some programs have specific rules on what you can and cannot do).
Who is Affiliate Marketing for?
Affiliate marketing is for everyone as long as you’re willing to put in the consistent effort to build your own residual income streams.
A big difference between affiliate marketing and “regular” jobs is whether you’re thinking for the short term or the long term.
In “regular” jobs, you work for your next paycheck (short term). This requires you to be at work to make money. If you stop working, your income stops. Scary thought? In contrast, affiliate marketing offers you the ability to make money while you sleep – you’re working for passive income streams.
By investing an initial amount of time into content or a campaign, you’ll see continuous returns on that time as consumers purchase over the following days, weeks and months. You receive money for your work long after you’ve finished it (long term). When you have passive income streams, you work only if you choose to, not because you have to (like a job)!
So if you’d like a potential full-time passive income, fully flexible work schedule, work from home without any face-to-fact selling then affiliate income could be great for you. Perhaps the best part is no prior experience is needed to get started in affiliate marketing. Because we have an amazing community to help you.
Affiliate marketing can work extremely well for bloggers as we naturally refer to products and services often and this is the way to monetize this advice into residual income streams.
Don’t know how to blog? That’s fine, as long as you have a passion and some interests, we can teach you how to turn that passion into profits. As a blogger, if you do it well, it’s a complete win-win for you and your readers. As long as you have the drive and determination to succeed online, we welcome you.
Can you make money with affiliate marketing?
100% yes.
Let’s take a look at how to do earn money in affiliate marketing step by step. When was the last time you bought something online and researched it before buying it? We all do this.
So going back to the drones example, you do your research and decide that the DJI Mavic Pro 4K Quadcopter with Remote Controller, 2 Batteries, with 1-Year Warranty – Gray is exactly what you want. If you or anyone looking for a drone click on a link in a review, buy your drone from Amazon, it’s in your hands for you and the kids to have fun with.
Well now you know that the link you clicked on in that review is an affiliate link. So that reviewer actually received a commission for connecting you to that product you were looking for. They didn’t have to ship it to you and don’t have to carry any stock. They simply connected you to the product you were already looking for through their review and that is exactly what affiliate marketing is all about.
Different merchants have different affiliate commission rates, ranging from 2 to 10%. In this example, say Amazon pays a 5% base commission with additional performance bonuses based on volume for this type of product.
This drone retails on Amazon for $884.00, so a 5% commission would be $44.20. If you’re the reviewer and wrote that article, you’d have a sweet $44.20 in your pocket.
Hooray!!!!
Hold on, you can’t quit your job from $44.20?
Hey don’t write off affiliate marketing just yet, let’s say you earn a sale a day, that’s around $1,300/month! What could you do with that residual income?
Pretty good for writing a review and referring your traffic to the merchant.
OK, So how much can you make with affiliate marketing?
The sky’s the limit, there are multiple sites in varied niches that make five figures per month from affiliate marketing each and every day. Another common question is how fast can you make money with affiliate marketing? Again, as long as you have the drive and determination to succeed online, you have unlimited earning potential.
So you now know the basics of affiliate marketing, equally important is knowing how to get traffic. The more traffic you get, the higher commission income potential you have.
How to build that all important traffic comes from a combination of creating relevant content for your site, what the readers want, and making the reader experience a good one.
Affiliate marketing can be very lucrative with many audiences. How fast can you make money with affiliate marketing depends on your current audience, the type of content you create and increasing your website’s traffic.
Would it help you if there was a tool that examined Google’s search data and could tell you precisely what your target audience was searching for? There is, and once you read this article on the best keyword research tool, you’ll use it every time.
Knowing the popular searches your target audience is searching for is one of the many factors for you to understand and grow your consistent traffic. To be a successful affiliate marketer, it is also about understanding reader intent. This is why readers are on your site.
Do readers come to your site with a problem and they are looking for a solution? Or just to read a good story? Knowing this will help you create a better user experience. This along with consistent traffic, you create opportunities for you to succeed with affiliate marketing.
Next, let’s look at some realistic numbers
So if you followed your training correctly, and you’ve built a website that gets 3,000 unique clicks per month, around 50 per day, which is actually very conservative when you build your website right with consistent effort.
From those 3,000 you have a 10% click-thru rate (CTR) on your affiliate links. CTR is the percentage of readers that actually click on your affiliate link and are taken to the buy page. So a 10% CTR on 3,000 clicks is 300 clicks per month. Now not everyone who clicks the link actually buys the product, so don’t go buying that expensive vacation just yet.
Let’s say that of those 300 who click your affiliate link, to be conservative, that 1 out of 30 makes a purchase.
That’s 10 sales per month, and if those 10 sales were for the modest drones, that’d be $430/monthly in commissions (where are you planning to travel!). Commissions can typically range from $25-40, or anywhere from $100+/month for each of those 10 sales.
Those are monthly commissions working for you 24/7 for 365 days a year, even while you sleep. What could you do with that passive income?
So How Profitable Can Affiliate Marketing Really Be?
Imagine what you can do with more articles or more traffic?
Looking just at traffic, from the conservative 3,000 click/month let’s bump up to a steady 10,000 clicks/month. From the $43 affiliate commission on the modest drone, let’s increase this to the nice round number of $100 per sale. There are tons of products or services out there offering this level of commission or higher that you can earn from.
Check out my review of my #1 recommendation which offers great training on affiliate marketing, creating the right content and growing huge traffic. It also has an affiliate program that is better than that round average of $100 per customer.
With 10,000 click/month, at the same 10% CTR, this is 1,000 people clicking through your affiliate links every single month. Then from the 1 out of 30 careful estimate we had earlier for customers who actually purchased, let’s also look at a very achievable 1 out of 15.
That would lead to over 60 purchases/month, and if you’re promoting something that earns you $100/sale commission, that would be over $6,000/month!
So now you can see that the sky really is the limit to how much you can make with affiliate marketing. For example, Pat Flynn, as successful affiliate marketer, is earning more than $2 million in 2017. You can check out his income report here.
Right, now you understand it and really know the power of that simple “affiliate” link in any content that leads to a merchant’s site. Next it’s time for the important next step of partnering with merchants.
What are the Best Paying Affiliate Programs?
The next step is to sign up with affiliate programs. There are literally thousands and thousands of affiliate programs out there for so many profitable niche markets. The common ones are:
- Amazon Associates
- ClickBank
- ShareASale
- Commission Junction
- JVZoo
- Rakuten Affiliate Network (formerly Linkshare)
- Affiliate Window
These are called affiliate networks where there are millions of products for you to promote as an affiliate. These affiliate programs have an endless number of merchants within their network. So when searching for merchants to partner with, you’ll often find them within one of these affiliate programs show above.
Signing up to become an affiliate is FREE. So, if you ever come across any affiliate program that requires you to pay a cost, stay clear of them.
You’ll be given a unique affiliate link when you’re accepted into any affiliate program. That link allows them to track exactly who are the affiliates that refer the sales. To make money from affiliate marketing, your role is to get people to purchase through your affiliate link.
The list above is some big players and you don’t have to partner with only these. Regardless of what niche you’re in, you can find a broad range of affiliate programs that may be smaller but still offer great commissions. A good starting point is to look at what products and services you already love and use.
Then consider promoting these on your blog and look for affiliate programs you could use for them. How? Begin with a simple Google search of “your niche + affiliate programs”. Instantly you have pages upon PAGES of awesome affiliate programs that are free to join and you can potentially promote. Choose any with a commission schedule you like and apply!
How to Make Money Affiliate Marketing for Beginners 2023 – Want More Help?
I hope you have found this guide on how to make money affiliate marketing for beginners useful. Has it got you thinking of the possibilities for you?
Understanding and getting the hang of how to make money affiliate marketing can be extremely profitable to you with the right training. Build your website right, and you can be enjoying consistent monthly commissions rather fast. Here’s a great overview of the four steps in creating an online business, please watch this: The 4 steps to creating a successful business online.
What is the best affiliate marketing course for beginners? The training platform I’m part of is the best training and mentoring community you’ll find online for building your successful affiliate marketing business. Take the training for a test drive and create your free starter account to see if it works for you too. I highly recommend it, and have got so many benefits and expect you will too. Then only $49/month if you want to go full-time. This includes personal help and coaching from me. Go ahead and check it out below.
Final Words and Feedback
Affiliate Marketing is my number one way to make money online. I love how highly effective it is and is the best way to monetize your blog. Don’t worry, affiliate marketing is will never disappear and it will not be saturated as well. Given that e-commerce is growing at an unprecedented pact there will always be opportunities.
It is predicted that retail e-commerce sales will skyrocket to more than 4.2 trillion by 2025. With the ongoing growth of e-commerce, affiliate marketing can only grow bigger as well so it’s exciting times.
Do you have more questions on how to make money affiliate marketing? What products and services do you already love and use often? Concerned there may not be an affiliate program in your niche? Worry not. Feel free to share your ideas and questions. Leave me a comment below or ask anything.
Finally, I hope this information on affiliate marketing helps you. If you understand and implement the right steps, you will be a successful affiliate marketing expert in no time. What could you do with your time and financial freedom from your very own successful online business?
