Do you want to use affiliate marketing to generate money online? Then you’ve come to the right place since this is the only affiliate marketing instruction you’ll ever need. To get you warmed up, let me tell you that the affiliate industry in the United States will reach $8.2 billion.

You don’t want a piece of it?

Affiliate marketing has the advantage of being almost completely passive income. It implies that you will make money even if you do not work for a period of time. But first, you must put in a lot of effort! Even a small portion of $8.2 billion will transform your life.

So let’s start with the fundamentals of affiliate marketing.

The Ultimate Affiliate Marketing Tutorial: Basics

Before you can start generating money with affiliate marketing, you must first grasp a few basic fundamentals. This section will lead you through the different sorts of company models and products and services that may be used for marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It’s a type of marketing in which you, as an affiliate, earn a commission from marketing a product or service that you don’t own. You search for a product or service, enjoy it, and recommend it to your audience. 

affiliate marketing

84% of publishers benefit from affiliate marketing, according to Web Market Support. It means there is a huge potential for you to make big bucks online. Affiliate marketing is based on a revenue-sharing model.

That brings me to the second concept of affiliate marketing, which is the business model. If you promote a product or service, the owner gets the sale or beneficial action. And you get your commissions for that. 

Affiliate Marketing Tutorial: Models

Cost Per Sale Affiliate Marketing

With this business model, you make money only if your audience buys something through your affiliate link. It can be software or a physical product like a gaming laptop. CPS merchants are small and large. And sometimes, they have a brick-and-mortar business. 

For example, Amazon Associates help you earn a commission if someone buys a product on Amazon using your link. Even if you send millions of visitors to the Amazon e-commerce store, you won’t make a single dollar unless they become buyers. 

It’s been becoming faster for years. Because you don’t require a sale to make a commission, this is a lot easier than CPS. However, it is quite competitive. And the majority of affiliate marketers are willing to spend money in order to make money.

Ian Fernando, for example, spent $8000 on advertisements to earn $9500. It’s a profit of $1500. That’s not awful! All of the variables must be thoroughly examined. Because even a small rise in cost per click can result in a loss for you.

Don’t worry; if you’re a niche marketer, it doesn’t happen very often. It implies that you should build a site or landing page around the niched category. Then, if you run advertising, you’ll be able to convert a large number of visitors into buyers.

But first, you need figure out what kind of product or service you’ll be promoting as an affiliate.

Types of Products or Services

You have a wide range of products and services to pick from. Affiliate marketing can range from a paid course subscription to tangible products. Let me categorize them into three primary groups and discuss them presently.

What-is-Digital-Product

Digital Products

Without a question, digital items can be quite valuable. A digital product cannot be touched, held, or tasted, but it may be consumed. You may appreciate music videos, but you will never touch or consume them.

  • Educational products like courses
  • Memberships for sites
  • Digital templates or tools
  • Music and art
  • Licenses to use your digital asset

From where can you get digital products for affiliate marketing? For that, you may want to visit some of the best networks and platforms like:

  • ShareASale
  • Awin
  • CJ Affiliate
  • Rakuten
  • ClickBank

And the list continues. First, you need to create your account there. And then search for the products related to your niche. Start promoting them and earn affiliate commissions. Affiliate marketers like Pat Flynn earn as much as $100K per month.

Physical Products

If you want to go for a less competitive type of product, then go for physical ones. I’m not saying that you should opt for selling iPhones because they’re still competitive in the market. But of course, you can dig into several products to choose from. 

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Here’s how you select a physical product for affiliate marketing:

  • Go to e-commerce giants like AmazoneBay, or Alibaba
  • Search the product categories
  • See the positive reviews
  • Select a solid product

And start creating content around it. Incorporate your affiliate link into it and make affiliate commissions for each sale. If you’re interested in promoting physical products, go for Amazon Associates, the biggest affiliate marketing program. 

Online Services

Some may consider it a digital product. But I believe online services are different things. Services may be based on software as a service (SAAS) or soft skills. You can promote a Saas product like Canva or SEMRush.  

Pick a Product or Service

First, you want to choose a product or service you want to promote. It’s like choosing a niche for your blog or website. Why? If your niche is football, you’d want to sell a football, net, and related products. 

Some people choose a niche based on their interests. In contrast, some are money-oriented and go for the perfect product to sell. Regardless of what niche you choose, you must pick a product or service to create content around it. 

Set Up Your Blog or Landing Page

To make money with affiliate marketing, you need a platform. That can be a blog, site, or landing page. That’s where you publish your content to help your audience and promote different products to earn commissions. 

Go to systeme.io, and that’s the landing page of system.io. 

How to make money online Systeme.io

Image Source: Systeme.io

This is Bluehost’s landing page. 

Blueshost hosting

Image Source: Bluehost

That’s the page where you pitch your idea to your audience. 

Here’s how you can set up a blog:

  • Buy hosting from the top hosting services
  • Get a domain name from NameCheap
  • Connect the domain name and hosting
  • Install WordPress to manage your content
  • And start creating content in your niche

You can make one special page dedicated to pitching your audience. That page will be called a landing page for you. But if you want to get more sales, create as many posts as you can.

But if you want to create a landing page or a blog for almost free, this is how you can do it:

  • Go to Systeme.io
  • Enter your email address
  • And click on ‘Get Started for Free
  • Log into your Systeme account
  • And create sales funnels, landing pages, and more

You can do it all without paying a single penny. You will only pay as you grow. That’s why I believe that systeme.io has everything you need to create an online business. 

What to do after you have created and published your content? Introduce affiliate links, of course. You can promote your affiliate products using:

  • PrettyLinks (Plugin that helps you incorporate affiliate links naturally)
  • Banner Ads (Copy the code from the affiliate program and paste it into your blog)
  • Recommendations page (That’s a wonderful page to recommend the products)
  • Tutorials, tips, and guides (Add value to your audience, so they trust you)

Most marketers sit and wait after they have created content in their niche. But I recommend you run a campaign and actively market your content across different media. 

Run the Campaigns

Running campaigns on email, social media, and search platforms is the fastest way to generate affiliate revenue. The campaigns may be free and paid as well. Running paid campaigns is even quicker than free ones. 

ads campains

This is how you run a campaign on email:

  • Start building your list with lead magnets and more
  • Decide on your goals and stick with them
  • Understand your audience
  • Create awesome opt-ins
  • Plan your emails and schedule them as well 
  • Craft the perfect subject lines
  • Go to an email marketing service like Convertkit or Constant Contact
  • Or you can use Systeme.io
  • Create an email drip campaign

And start sending the emails to your audience. Talk to them and be friendly. Understand and help them genuinely. Gradually you will build trust and start making money with affiliate commissions. 

Here is how you can run a social media campaign:

  • Understand your audience
  • Decide on the goal of your campaign
  • Choose the best social media platform (where your audience spends most time)
  • Create a content calendar for the week, month, and year
  • Design visual content as well
  • Schedule posts and monitor the response
  • Follow up and start promoting the products

Running a campaign is not just about running it. But you need to keep analyzing the performance and act accordingly. The number one tip I can give is to analyze some of the top successful campaigns, and you’ll know what you need to do. 

Track & Analyze Your Progress

Analyzing your progress along the way is extremely important for long-term gains. Luckily, you don’t need rocket science to do it. All you need to do is pay attention to the affiliate program dashboard you have chosen. 

But tracking and analyzing your progress may be challenging if you work with more than one affiliate program. For that, you may want to use L-ink.M services. It helps you track and analyze all your links in one place.

  • Go to L-ink.Me
  • Create your free account there
  • Start shortening and gratifying your links
  • Go to the dashboard after logging in
  • Track and analyze the progress
  • L-ink.Me is not only the best URL shortener but also a full-fledged link management tool. It also helps you create one link for all your links and build quick landing pages.