MAKE MONEY AS AN AFFILIATE MARKETER:
I am sure you have heard of affiliate marketing.. but do you know what it is? Do you understand how it works and how you can make money with affiliate marketing?
Are you wondering how to get started?
* This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more info.
WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING – HOW DOES IT WORK?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model. Businesses will pay you a commission for selling their products.
Basically.. you are another of their sales associates. But, instead of working in one of their stores.. you are selling their products online. In return they pay you a commission for each completed sale.
When you are approved as an affiliate for the merchant.. you will be assigned an affiliate ID. Your unique affiliate ID will be attached to each of your links.
All sales are tracked.. thereby allowing the company to see which affiliate made the sale.
When a sale is generated through one of your links, which contains your affiliate ID, you will be paid a commission for that sale. It is as simple as that! 😊
Affiliate marketing has become a very popular strategy used by a lot of brands to increase sales and generate substantial online revenue. Over the years affiliate marketing has proven to be extremely beneficial for both merchants and affiliate marketers alike.
Personally, I have been earning a living with affiliate marketing for more than 20 years.
Affiliate marketing spending in the United States alone grew by 49.8% from 2021 to 2024. In 2024 affiliate spending climbed to $13.6 billion.
To get your piece of the multi-billion dollar pie.. and begin making money with affiliate marketing.. take advantage of the information I have provided for you on this blog as to how you can start your own blog and get it setup properly.
You can start at the beginning with the following post:
* Becoming a Blogger – The Beginner’s Guide
From there you can read the next post and the next.. which will guide you step-by-step through the process of starting your own blog.
If you are a complete beginner and not sure where to start or how to proceed.. check out our best-selling course below:
Blogging Step-by-Step
A Top Selling Course from 7-figure Professional Blogger,
Sherry Bennett aka The Blogging Queen
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WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT AFFILIATE MARKETING MODELS?
You can make money with affiliate marketing from three different types of affiliate programs:
PAY PER SALE: The pay per sale programs are the most popular. These programs pay you a commission for each sale you generate.
PAY PER CLICK: These programs pay you for each person you send to the merchant’s website.. whether they make a purchase or not.
PAY PER LEAD: These programs pay you for each person who fills out a form and submits their contact information to the merchant.
The pay per sale model is the most common. You send your visitor to the merchant’s website and if that person makes a purchase.. you are paid a commission on that sale.
The pay per click model is only profitable if your site has massive amounts of traffic. The payouts are normally quite low. This means you will have to send a lot of traffic to these sites if you expect to earn much money.
The pay per lead model is normally for things like home loans, auto loans, credit repair, etc.
If you send someone to the merchant’s website and that person fills out a form with their name, address and phone number.. you will be paid a fixed amount for each person who has shared their contact information with the merchant.
* In some cases the pay per lead offers will pay you an additional commission if the person actually follows through with obtaining the home loan, auto loan, credit repair, etc.
HOW TO GET STARTED WITH AFFILIATE PROGRAMS:
The best way (and the easiest way) to get started and make money with affiliate marketing is to apply to a few of the Affiliate Networks.
The major affiliate networks have thousands of merchants who are already signed up.. and who are actively seeking affiliates to promote their products.
In turn the networks allow merchants access to thousands of affiliates and offer tracking, records, stats, etc., making it a convenient and more comprehensive solution for everyone.
You should have at least 15 – 20 posts on your site before you start applying to the affiliate networks. Some of them are more strict than others and may want to check your site before granting you approval to access the merchants on their network.
For a list of the best affiliate networks.. read the following post:
* Best Affiliate Marketing Networks
Once you have gotten approval from the networks.. you can start browsing through the various merchants who fit your niche. I find this often helps me in brainstorming ideas for new posts as well.
Before you begin applying to the individual merchants.. you should wait until you have a reasonable number of posts published and have built up some traffic to your site.
Some of the merchants will cancel you from their affiliate program if you have not generated a sale within a reasonable length of time.
Case in point.. Amazon. If you sign up for the Amazon Associates program.. you will have 180 days to generate 3 sales.
If you do not fulfill this requirement.. you will be canceled from the Amazon Associates program.
Also.. before applying you need to be sure that all of your legal pages are in place and linked from either your top menu or your footer. There are 3 basic legal pages required on your site:
These are your Privacy Policy, an Affiliate Disclosure Statement and an Accessibility Statement as required by the ADA.
These 3 legal pages will be required for your acceptance into any affiliate network.
The Affiliate Disclosure Statement is actually required by the FTC. Therefore, you will be required to have this on your site before you can be considered by any of the affiliate networks and/or each of the individual affiliate programs.
There are additional legal pages to be considered as well. These include a Cookie Policy, an Acceptable Use Policy, a Disclaimer and a DMCA Policy.
These additional statements are not required by law.. but will protect you and your site. You can include as many as you feel you need to make sure you feel safe and are completely protected.
To learn more about the required legal pages.. read our post:
* Legal Pages Needed for Your Website
HOW TO EARN MONEY AS AN AFFILIATE:
You make money by linking to the various products available to you from the affiliate programs you have joined.
When someone purchases one of these products.. you will be paid a commission.
Let’s say you have a food blog featuring a lot of your favorite recipes. One of the recipes is for lasagna.
As it happens a couple of the merchants you have just been approved for are Macy’s and JCPenney at FlexOffers.
When browsing the sites at Macys.com you found a ceramic roasting pan.. and in checking JCPenney.com you found a set of 3 ceramic roasting pans.. and the larger one would be perfect for baking lasagna.
At some point.. perhaps in between the list of ingredients and the instructions where you are guiding your readers as to how to layer the ingredients in a roasting pan.. you could picture the pans and mention the following…
I have this 3-piece set at left. I love these pans! The larger one is perfect for making lasagna.. and they are nice looking enough to go directly from oven to table. Also, they clean up so nicely.
Link the words 3-piece set in the first sentence to the set you found on JCPenney.com
If you click on the image.. you can also link the image.
Showing pictures is always much better than simply linking words. This will increase your chances of making sales.
If someone clicks on your links and makes a purchase.. JCPenney or Macy’s will pay you a commission for the sale. The store made money.. you made money.. it’s a win-win!
NOTE: For the best results.. don’t ever be too pushy! Treat your visitors like valued friends. You can suggest a product that you like.. or introduce them to a product that you have found useful.
However.. the minute you make them feel as though they are being given a high pressure sales pitch.. they will choose NOT to buy anything!
Remember.. people online are searching for answers to their questions.. and solutions to their problems. As a blogger.. it is up to you to help people find what they want.. and then introduce them to new things they didn’t even realize they needed 😊
CAN YOU MAKE MONEY WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING?
YES – Definitely! I have created numerous blogs over the years.. and have monetized all of my blogs with affiliate marketing ONLY! Through hard work and perseverance.. I have been able to bild my blog empire into a 7-figure business.
The amount of money you will be able to make with affiliate marketing is determined by YOU and YOU alone! How hard are you willing to work to have the lifestyle you have always dreamed of?
Full-time bloggers earn anywhere from $10,000 a month to $100,000 a month, and even more in some cases.
How much you would like to earn.. and how much time you are willing to invest in reaching your goals is entirely up to you.
You are certainly NOT going to earn this kind of money in your first year of blogging. It will take time to learn all that you need to learn.
It is also going to take some time for your blog to gain momentum. The more content you have on your blog the more opportunities you will have to attract readers to your site to read the various articles.
Establishing a pattern of posting on a regular basis.. (every few days would be suggested).. will help build a foundation for you to continue building on as time goes by.
Try to come up with few posts relating to your niche that will provide you the opportunity to create spin-offs of the original posts. When doing this.. always be sure each of the posts is linked to the others. Writing articles in topic clusters.. and interlinking the posts on your site will help your SEO.
Learn more about these practices in the following posts:
* SEO for Beginners
* Creating Content
If you would like to learn more about affiliate marketing.. and the best ways to increase your affiliate income.. Read the following post:
* 10 Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Marketing Income
Chelsea Clarke has created a course for you to learn more about affiliate marketing.
You can check out her course here: Route to Affiliate Sales
About the Author: Sherry Bennett
Ms. Bennett is a Professional Blogger, who has been earning a living online with niche websites for 25+ years.
Through hard work and dedication, she has turned her passion for blogging into a 7-figure business.. and you can do the same.
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* If you are a new blogger just starting your blogging adventure
learn how to start your blog the right way from the beginning:
Blogging Step-by-Step
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