Have you ever wished you could earn money while doing the things you love, like sitting on the beach with your favorite drink, watching the weekly football game, or taking your kids to the zoo? With affiliate marketing, that dream can come true.
Affiliate markers earn a commission for marketing another company’s product. It’s a win-win because the business doesn’t have to do the legwork for the marketing process, and the affiliate can earn a (mostly) passive income. Intrigued? Read about how affiliate marketing works and if it’s right for you.
How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing
The creators of a product can reach out to a marketer—whether a company, an influencer, a podcast host, or whomever—to promote their product. Rather than the product developers putting in the effort to create a major marketing campaign, the affiliate marketer is left in charge of presenting the product to the desired audience.
Because affiliate marketing intends to push a product directly to a target audience, this marketing method is desirable for products within specific niches. Influencers, bloggers, and podcasters tend to have audiences with a particular interest in common, making them great candidates for affiliate marketing.
There are a few different ways that affiliate marketers receive a commission. Some businesses offer a pay-per-click deal, giving you a cut every time a consumer clicks a personalized link, while others will pay you for sales initiated by the affiliate. Many marketers rely on users visiting their site and performing a specific action, like submitting a form, downloading an app using a particular link or code, or bringing in a referral.
If done well, affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn a passive income since the content only needs to be created, and the audience does the rest. Marketing content may take many different forms—here are a few examples:
A clickable link or banner on an existing website
A sponsored segment on a podcast or video
A post on a popular social media channel
An email sent to newsletter subscribers
An integrated recommendation as a part of related content
With untold amounts of products needing exposure to more niche audiences across the digital world, there is a demand for affiliate marketers. As a result, this field is proving to be very lucrative. ZipRecruiter lists an average monthly income of over $12,000 for affiliate marketers, making this field very profitable for those who do it well. While it requires more up-front effort, consistency, and persistence than other passive income strategies, the reward may be worth it.
Types of Affiliate Programs
There are a few different types of affiliate programs that market products. These programs might have different audiences they can reach, and some options might be more trusted than others. These types of affiliate programs include:
Major online affiliate platforms: Large platforms specializing in affiliate marketing often have vast audiences they can reach, proving reliable for spreading the word about a product or service.
Platforms like Commission Junction (CJ) and Impact.com have been around for decades, partnering with global brands to market big-name products and services successfully. Marketing with a major online affiliate platform ensures broad exposure and peace of mind in the marketing process.
Direct affiliate partnerships: Often, marketers receive a specialized affiliate link that, when clicked or followed to make a purchase, will give them a commission. Examples of organizations that offer this type of marketing include Amazon Associates and AvantLink. Because this strategy causes people to follow a clickable link, this can be a very desirable strategy for products, platforms, or services.
Content integration: Content integration is a good method for someone with a blog or newsletter. Those interested in the blog's content will learn about the marketed product from a trusted source. This approach is great for reaching niche audiences you know will be interested in the marketed product.
Influencer sponsorships: Sponsoring an influencer and paying them to promote a product is an increasingly popular form of affiliate marketing, seen heavily on platforms like Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram. This approach can be great for someone with an established social media audience.
In the beginning, it can be a bit difficult to navigate the different marketing strategies and platforms. However, as you learn one platform, it should become more natural to work with others over time, as many of them operate similarly.
How Businesses Can Be Successful in Affiliate Marketing
There are several ways businesses can be successful with affiliate marketing. One of the most significant advantages of affiliate marketing is that it frees up a business’s time and human resources to focus on other things. It’s less likely that a business owner would need a large, dedicated marketing team who will spend excessive money on marketing campaigns.
One of the more complex marketing challenges is finding an audience, then building its interest in a product. With affiliate marketing, businesses can target an established audience already with specific niches. More people are likely to discover a product, purchase it, and rely on it because someone they trust recommended it.
While a company can solely use affiliate marketing to promote a product or service, it can also work well as a supplement to current marketing strategies. Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and other vendors may choose to become affiliate marketers themselves, providing another stream of income.
Businesses looking to invest in affiliate marketing can see massive benefits from using the right card to pay for it. The dash.fi card offers 3% unlimited cash back on all your digital marketing spending for the first two months after signing up. Plus, the dash.fi card has over 10x the credit limit compared to other business cards and advanced spend controls. If you’re interested in promoting your business with affiliates, consider paying them with the dash.fi card.
How Affiliate Marketers Can Be Successful
Becoming an affiliate marketer comes with many perks, like working from home, flexible hours, and passive income. But being a successful affiliate marketer often requires quite a bit of perseverance and consistency before seeing results.
It can take a lot of up-front work to build the audience and channels of income necessary to see a solid income stream, but it is possible.
Marketers already possessing an audience will do better to establish themselves as a trusted, reliable source. They may do this by building a more personal connection to their audience or by focusing on a singular niche that their audience can relate to. Gaining the audience’s trust is the most crucial part of affiliate marketing, though also the most challenging.
Affiliates also do well if they stay current with particular trends and fads, then cater their promotional materials to match. For example, many predict TikTok will be the most significant social network used for marketing, as it’s incredibly popular among younger generations. More marketers are catching on to its popularity and are jumping in to profit.
Diversifying promotional content into several different channels can also lead to more marketing success. Blogs, videos, podcasts, e-mail newsletters, social media, and other marketing strategies are great ways to reach an audience. People may prefer different channels for consuming information, so cater to those differences as an affiliate.
Affiliate marketing can provide value to businesses that need to promote their products and the marketers willing to present that product to their audience. The success of the venture and the money given to the affiliate are generally linked in many marketing arrangements, making it a cost-effective advertising solution.
Whether you’re a business owner seeking new ways to promote your product or an entrepreneur wanting a passive income stream, affiliate marketing can be an excellent option. And if you’re wondering how to pay affiliate marketing costs, consider using dash.fi’s business cashback card to make the most of your money.
