Affiliate marketing is the business of the 21st century and will remain top amongst other online businesses.
The great thing with affiliate marketing is that it doesn’t matter who you are, who your parents are or what type of home you reside and doesn’t care about your race or gender or whether you are rich or poor, you still have the same opportunity as the next man.
As a beginner in blogging and Affiliate Marketing, it is very difficult to understand how Affiliate marketing works. In this blog, I am giving some insights about this.
Affiliate Marketing: The Business Of The 21st Century is Explained In 10 Points
1. In order to increase the sale of the products, the Manufacturer / Merchant usually approaches an Affiliate network provider (Affiliate Platform) to get help from them to promote their products.
2. Both the Affiliate merchant and the Affiliate network provider (Affiliate platforms) agree on their respective earnings. They also agree on what to pay to Affiliates.
3. The Affiliate network provider creates a product-specific link generation system on their Affiliate platform that automatically generates Affiliate links to the particular product. This affiliate link contains details of the product, the merchant’s details and the Affiliate Marketer’s details in coded form.
4. The Affiliate Marketer like you and me approaches the Affiliate Platforms and gets registered with them. After registering with affiliate platforms, search for the suitable product(s) get the auto-generated links and place them on your blogging website.
5. The Affiliate Marketer uses the affiliate link in their blogging content as a hyperlink.
6. Blogger publishes product-related useful information on their blogs to attract the attention of readers.
7. The reader goes through the product blog, finds it useful is convinced of the need to buy the product being promoted, and decides to click on the Affiliate hyperlink.
If the reader (i.e. potential buyer) clicks on the Affiliate hyperlink on your blogging website he/she will be redirected to the product’s page.
8. If a customer buys the product, this becomes a successful sale through the Affiliate’s marketing.
9. The details of the purchase are recorded both by the Affiliate Network and the Merchant.
10. Upon successful sale, the Affiliate’s (Your) account will be credited with the commission amount due.
Example of How Affiliate Marketing Works?
Dell is a manufacturer of Laptops and computers.
In order to increase the sale of laptops or computers; Dell approached the CJ (Commission Junction).
Here you have to note that Dell is the manufacturer and CJ (Commission Junction) is the Affiliate network platform.
CJ (Commission Junction) is an affiliate network platform, that helps in the promotion of Dell products on their platforms.
Using the Affiliate platform like CJ (Commission Junction) Affiliates like you and me promote their products on our blogging website or on any social media.
If any reader across the globe searches the product’s, product-related content in Google, or on social media and finds it useful and convinced to buy the Laptop or computer click on the Laptop affiliate Link.
Then he or she will be directed to the Dell page, where a reader can buy the Laptop.
Once this sale happens then the reader or now we can say the consumer will receive the Laptop directly from Dell.
In this entire procedure, Dell got a good sale. Here, you can notice that DELL itself does not place any marketing efforts to sell the Laptop.
Affiliate network provider Commission Junction was given the platform.
You and I (Affiliates who promoted laptops on their Blogging site or on any social media) got the decided per cent commission on the sale of laptops.
This way Affiliate marketing works.
In reality, it is a win-win for everyone in this Affiliate marketing chain.
Tools required for the Affiliate marketing:
I will try to keep this as inexpensive as possible, however, there will be a little investment. As they always say; “It takes money to make money.”
List of the tools that you will need for Affiliate marketing:
1. An Email Account
2. An Affiliate Account
3. Mass Email Client
4. A Lead Page, Blog page or any social media page
5. A Link Shortener
6. Facebook Groups or any other social media groups
7. An Automated Facebook or social media Poster
Email Account:
An email Account will be required for smooth communication. You will use your email account as a tool for the communication. We all know what an email account is and how it is used.
You will require this tool to handle the communication between your subscriber and affiliate platforms and to receive correspondence concerning your earnings and accounts.
Affiliate Account:
You will need to have an affiliate account with the Affiliate platform (Affiliate Network provider). This will facilitate you to find the products to promote and earn a commission.
Mass Email Client:
This is the tool that you will need to create signup forms, and lists and will be useful to run the campaigns.
Lead Page:
Lead page is a single-page website that you will use to capture your prospective client’s email before sending them to your affiliate’s website.
Link Shortener:
This is a website that will shorten your long URLs down to a manageable size to post across various platforms without taking away from what you have to say in a limited number of characters. This site will also provide you with statistics on how many people are visiting your page.
Social media groups /Facebook Groups:
Nowadays just about everyone has a Facebook page or engages in social media groups and if you are already in several groups then you understand the benefits of being in them.
Automated Facebook Poster:
This is an essential tool to make it easier to move on to your next affiliate program while still promoting your current affiliate links.
Setting up Your Email Account:
In order to receive correspondence related to your affiliate accounts, set up a mailing list, and manage your campaigns; you will need an email account to do so. it is just as important as your personal or business email.
For easy way whatever you are currently using for your personal email will be sufficient. However, when it comes to setting up and sending out your email campaigns, Gmail’s policies, and automated messages coming from another Gmail account are now considered spam.
By using an Outlook account it alleviates the problems of trying to keep your automated emails out of your subscribers’ spam folders. However, your subscribers will come to know where this email is coming from and why they are receiving it.
FAQs | How Affiliate Marketing Works?
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing means promoting products of other companies, for earning commission on their successful sales.
Who are Affiliates?
Affiliates are any person or entity promoting the products of other companies to help them sell and generate commission for themself.
How soon the commission amount will be credited?
Generally 30-day security period is available for most of the products, which ensures the Affiliate will not be paid yet the customer returns the product later to claim the refund. The security period depends on the product merchant’s return policy plus the waiting period added on by the Affiliate Network provider.
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