If you’re looking to make some extra cash, affiliate marketing is a way to go. Essentially, you’ll be partnering with online retailers and getting a commission when somebody clicks a link or buys a product that’s promoted on your website.
It’s an effective way to make money online because there’s so much competition. If you want to be able to make any significant amount of money, you’ll have to find a way to stand out from the crowd. One way is by creating valuable content that helps people solve problems. You can do this whether you’re creating a blog in addition to your affiliate marketing business or you’ve got a product to promote. In this article, we’ll explore how to make money online with affiliate marketing and share with you six ways to make quick cash without any previous experience.
The Basics Behind Affiliate Marketing
To give you a better understanding of what affiliate marketing is and how it works, let’s take a look at the basics of online retail.
Retail stores have been adapting to online shopping platforms like EBay, Amazon, and Etsy for years. As a result, most brick-and-mortar retailers have websites where customers can make purchases online. When a customer clicks a product’s link or enters the store’s website directly, the retailer pays you a commission.
Even retailers that have physical stores have fully embraced online marketing and actively encourage customers to go online to make purchases. As a brand ambassador or affiliate marketer, you’ll be partnering with brands and retailers to attract customers and earn a commission when they make a purchase. You set the commission percentage you’re willing to accept, and the rest is up to the retailer.
Why Affiliate Marketing?
There are several advantages to working with brands and online retailers through affiliate marketing.
To start, you won’t need any previous sales experience because you won’t be handling individual sales. Instead, you’ll be partnering with brands and retailers that already have a customer base. This means you don’t need to worry about gaining new customers because the brands and retailers you’re working with already have an established audience.
Another advantage is the variety of jobs you can do with affiliate marketing. Since you’re essentially working with brands and retailers that have products to sell, you’ll have the opportunity to promote something from a variety of industries. If you’re looking to build a career in digital marketing, this is a great option because you’ll be able to network and build a portfolio with some of the biggest brands and retailers in the world.
How to Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing
Now that you have a better understanding of what affiliate marketing is and why it’s become such a popular model among digital marketers, let’s dive into how to make money online with this strategy.
As a brand ambassador or affiliate marketer, you’ll be tasked with bringing in revenue for your company by promoting products that are relevant to your audience. To do this, you’ll need to find relevant products that are tied to an affiliate program and then learn how to successfully promote those products to generate interest and leads for your company. Let’s explore six ways you can make quick cash online with affiliate marketing.
1. Create a blog
Blogs are a great way to make money online because they’re relatively inexpensive to start and maintain. When you have a blog, you’ll have the opportunity to write and curate content regularly.
The great thing about having a blog is that you don’t necessarily have to have a lot of followers to make money from it. In fact, you can choose to only write and curate content for your own personal audience, which means you’ll only be responsible for bringing in revenue from people who actually want to hear from you. With a bit of planning and research, you can easily target the right audience and get paid substantially for your efforts.
2. Start an online store
If you’re looking to get started with affiliate marketing, one of the best options is to start an online store. This could be something as simple as a blog with a store component or a fully fledged eCommerce platform. When you have a store, you’ll have the opportunity to sell and promote products that are relevant to your audience. You’ll also have the ability to gather emails and contact details from interested parties and grow your email list quickly. You can then leverage this list to send out email campaigns to promote your online store.
An important thing to consider when choosing this route is the type of product you’ll be promoting. When it comes to affiliate marketing, you’ll be competing for attention with thousands of other marketers and brand ambassadors seeking to earn a commission off the same products. The higher the price point of the product, the greater the competition. For instance, product prices above $100,000 will typically have fierce competition. However, lower priced products in the $10,000-$30,000 range have much less competition, making them ideal for promotion.
3. Sign up for a marketplace affiliate program
There are several affiliate marketing platforms designed for online stores and brands that are looking to partner with affiliate marketers and brand ambassadors. Some of the most popular ones include Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. If you sign up for a marketplace affiliate program, you’ll have the opportunity to promote products relevant to your audience and can build a community of engaged fans who are interested in consuming your content.
What’s great about signing up for a marketplace affiliate program is that you don’t necessarily need a product to promote. You can choose to promote a service or an event that your audience is interested in. For example, if you’re an Etsy seller seeking to increase your sales, you could choose to partner with a company that provides an affiliate program for Etsy sellers. When somebody clicks a product or service link you’ve promoted, you’ll earn a commission.
4. Start an affiliate marketing agency
If you’re looking to make quick cash, one of the best options is to start an affiliate marketing agency.
An affiliate marketing agency is a business that specializes in promoting other companies’ products and services. They typically handle the initial set-up and management of an affiliate program for a brand or retailer, while you focus on marketing and acquiring affiliates that will bring in revenue via product promotions. You’ll need to apply for a DBA (doing business as) license and then begin making money by sharing revenue with the corporate agency you work for. This could be a simple percentage of revenue or a fixed dollar amount for minimum sales.
5. Start an online store within an eCommerce platform
If you’re looking to get started with affiliate marketing, one of the best options is to start an online store within an eCommerce platform. This could be a simple blog with a store component or a fully fledged eCommerce platform. If you choose the latter, you’ll have the opportunity to sell and promote products that are relevant to your audience and can build a community of interested fans who are looking for your product recommendations.
The advantage of using an eCommerce platform is that you don’t necessarily need a physical store to sell your product. Instead, you can configure your store to accept online orders from customers and then ship the items to buyers once they make a purchase. This reduces the amount of work you need to do in order to get your product to market. You can choose to operate an online store within an eCommerce platform without having to worry about gaining physical location or dealing with shipping.
6. Start an affiliate network
If you’re looking for a way to make quick cash, one of the best options is to start an affiliate network.
An affiliate network is a group of businesses collaborating to sell and commission other businesses’ products. In order to become a part of the affiliate network, you’ll need to create a landing page on your website where affiliates can read about your program and get signed up. Once you have at least ten affiliates who’ve signed up for your program, you can notify the network you’re a member and begin earning a commission on sales.
Creating a landing page for affiliates is one of the simplest ways to make money online, and it doesn’t necessarily require any previous experience. Simply find a relevant product that you can promote and then get creative with the copy you use to attract potential customers to the page. Once you have at least ten affiliates who’ve signed up for your program, you can notify the network you’re a member and begin earning a commission on sales.
Choosing to go the affiliate marketing route is a viable option for those seeking to make extra cash. What’s great is that with a little bit of effort, you can set up a profitable business almost immediately. With only a few hundred dollars in expenses (e.g., domain name, hosting fees, etc.), you can literally get started earning revenue almost immediately.