When the Internet first arose, no one expected it to be such an integral part of the economy. The highest paying jobs no longer physically exist, they are all online. Jobs that publishers like you could easily access! Such as the beauty of affiliate marketing. Where, in some cases, publishers are making up to 150K in a year.

Affiliate marketing has become the staple go-to job when looking to make money online. Whether you want some extra change or to support your entire family, affiliate marketing has the potential to generate any amount of income you’re looking for!

As long as you’re willing to put in the hard work and dedication to advertise. Plus you’ll need to work alongside other people. But if these two requirements don’t scare you, then you should go into affiliate marketing.

The most important part of affiliate marketing is choosing the right affiliate program. With the endless number of possible affiliate partners, it’s terrifying if you don’t know where to start. However, if you follow the steps below, you’ll be able to organize and choose from your options!

What is Affiliate Marketing?

If you told a publisher that you’d never heard of affiliate marketing before, they would laugh at you. Affiliate marketing is so commonplace that there are few left who haven’t come across it before.

But for those of you who haven’t heard of it. Affiliate marketing is the mutual exchange between an affiliate program and their publishers.

The affiliate is usually a brand, or business who needs advertising done. The affiliate network provides their publishers with unique referral links. These links redirect users back to the affiliate product or content pages. Each time a user interacts with your referral link, you’ll be compensated financially.

Publishers are paid per user interaction, which can include any of the following:

  • Clicking on ads;
  • Buying a product;
  • Subscribing to the affiliate site or account;
  • Paying for the affiliate membership;
  • Signing up for notifications;
  • Sharing referral links.

 
Affiliates can also pay publishers a set amount each month for their marketing efforts. Though most go the route of paying per interaction.

The publisher’s job is to make sure as many users go through the affiliate site as possible. As long as those user interactions can be tracked back to the publisher. Otherwise, they might miss out on potential income!

A publisher needs to keep up with trends and constantly adjust content. Regardless of the platform they use, they must prioritize customer care. The more intimate user relationships you develop, the more stable income you earn.

How to Choose the Right Affiliate Program

If you want to know how to do affiliate marketing, you need to choose the right affiliate program. While most publishers jump on the first offer they get, there are other factors to consider:

  • Niche compatibility;
  • The products or content they offer;
  • Commission rates;
  • Potential audience reach;
  • Ad and link quality;
  • Affiliate server capabilities;
  • Statistics and interaction history.

 
The most important factors are the affiliates’ niche and product selection. Whichever affiliate you choose, make sure that you enjoy advertising their content.

It becomes a mission to keep marketing products that you have no interest in. The same goes for the actual niche you decide on. If you’re not interested in the topic at hand, you can’t make an adequate income.

The next thing to consider is the commission rates that the affiliate is offering. Large commission rates might seem enticing, but they can generate much less in the long run. If you advertise for a lower fee, you can complete small actions to build up a bigger income. Either way, make sure your affiliate is known for actually paying their publishers!

When deciding on an affiliate, check the quality of the ads and referral links they provide. While the company may offer a large amount of compensation, it’s useless if viewers don’t want to click on their ads. Ads that have grainy images, sketchy grammar, or struggle to load, are red flags.

The same concept applies when the user is actually on the affiliate site. If the product or content pages aren’t loading, you’ll quickly lose out on sales. If the website is too busy or visually unappealing, customers will leave. Whichever affiliate you choose, make sure to do a background check on their content.

The last thing to look out for is an affiliate that provides statistical information about all interactions. The affiliate should also provide a payment and communication history log. This allows publishers to physically see why they are paid a certain amount. As well, both the affiliate and publisher can see which user interactions came from where.

Admitad Partner Network

As you can see, choosing an affiliate program to partner with can be a huge hassle. That’s why most publishers go through an external platform to help them decide on an affiliate. The best tool to use at the moment is the Admitad Partner Network.

Admitad is a platform that helps any publisher connect with a complementary affiliate. Admitad is great for mediating professional relationships that benefit both parties. Admitad offers affiliate marketing reports for both publishers and affiliates. That way, everyone involved can track any progress that occurs.

Admitad Partner Network is also a great option if you’re looking to connect with large brands. Any publisher has a chance to advertise with companies like:

  • Nike;
  • AliExpress;
  • Adobe;
  • City.Travel;
  • Booking.com;
  • DHGate;
  • Kinguin.

 
So many publishers are falling victim to affiliate scams. Make sure to play it safe and go through a platform like Admitad that verifies your affiliates beforehand!

How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing

Choosing the right affiliate program relies on your own advertising capabilities and limitations.

If you don’t understand what you’re capable of when it comes to affiliate marketing, you won’t know who to partner with. An affiliate will always question why they should partner with you over others.

A publisher must understand the following before they can choose the right affiliate program:

  • The select niche;
  • Collaboration;
  • SEO;
  • Social media.

 
Once a publisher understands themselves in relation to these four factors, they can sensibly choose an affiliate. You can only choose an affiliate when you know what you’re willing to offer them!

Any of the above factors require proper customer care. That means taking in any feedback you receive and working hard to improve your mistakes. Making money with affiliate marketing is no walk in the park, but it’s worth it!

Find Your Niche

You’ll draw a blank when deciding on an affiliate program if you don’t understand your own niche. Picking a niche is integral to your entire affiliate marketing career. Without a proper niche, you won’t make nearly as much money as you could with the right choice.

Publishers love to run toward booming niches that seem to generate endless income. These niches can often be disappointing and oversaturated. Larger niches also have fluctuating income rates. Whereas a smaller niche has a smaller but more stable audience. That ensures you’ll make a similar amount each month.

The best niche a publisher could choose is one that matches their hobbies and interests. Especially the rare or unique ones—this is what will grab your viewers’ attention.

For example, you’re a publisher who has an interest in both horseback riding and app design. Horse riding may be a passion of yours, but it won’t generate as much income as app design would. A win-win could be to design apps with a horse theme. This is a great way to make your content more distinctive.

Consider the size of the audience in the niche you choose. Some niches may get tons of traffic, but only a small percent of those users buy products. Whereas if you go with a niche that has a small audience but whose majority is likely to spend money, you’ll make much more.

Finally, choose a niche that you know you’ll put effort into. The niche you’ll make the most money from is the one that you want to work on every day!

Collaboration

For those who really want to know how to affiliate market, it’s best to learn from and team up with others. Publishers and influencers worldwide can mutually benefit from any collaborative efforts.

More users trust businesses that speak on a relatable level. The best place to do this is through casual interactions with other advertisers. These types of interactions show your human side, like cooking together or having a live talk.

The most common forms of collaborative posts include the following:

  • Product reviews (single or roundup);
  • Influencer gifting;
  • Giveaways;
  • Competitions;
  • Account takeovers;
  • Combined posts;
  • Joint live-streams;
  • Sponsorships;
  • Brand ambassadors.

 
As a publisher, you can choose between being paid to advertise and paying others to advertise with you. It’s usually one party that approaches the other for collaboration. Regardless of which side you’re on, you’ll need to either create content or market existing content. Collaboration is all about the content involved.

Collaborative content is often more relatable than other types of marketing. Collaborations are great for displaying your products in a fun manner. Any video of you and an influencer having fun with your product will quickly increase sales.

A post that speaks about your past or opinions on current affairs gets noticed immediately!

The goal is to have fun and make the content appealing to your viewers. Team up with an influencer to learn how to persuade an audience into buying random products. Partner with other businesses so both parties can share the load.

Make strong relationships with these people, as you might need them again in the future!

Harness the Power of SEO

When we speak about SEO, we aren’t just talking about putting the right keywords in an article. When a publisher optimizes their content and speed for SEO, they make sure all of the below are done correctly:

  • Website and page speed;
  • Webpage indexing;
  • Desktop and mobile compatibility;
  • HTTPs and security measures;
  • Quality keywords;
  • Custom and short URLs;
  • Internal and external links;
  • Logical page structure (H1, H2, H3).

 
These aren’t the only parts of SEO optimization that a publisher needs to look out for. Another very important thing is to ensure that your content, pages, or any links load quickly and in the way they should. There’s nothing worse than getting a user to a niche website but having them leave anyway because the page won’t load.

The next thing that bugs most, if not all, Internet users is desktop and mobile compatibility. Most users use a mix of their laptops, phones, and tablets. Even smartwatches in some cases. Ensure that you use platforms that are mobile-friendly and easy to navigate.

Secure content and websites are used more by users. The Internet is full of people stealing personal data to sell to corporations. That’s why people have become very careful when using anything online. If you prove that users can trust you, they’ll return to your content.

The last thing that greatly boosts your SEO is the use of internal and external links. Make sure your content is easy to navigate within each page. As well as ensuring that any external links work properly and redirect to verified sources.

Social Media

Making money with affiliate marketing is hard enough without being limited to a single platform. Make sure to utilize every social media network and platform you can when advertising. The more users see your content, the greater your potential income is.

Many publishers make the mistake of focusing on a single platform. While this allows you to develop more intimate relationships with users, it limits your overall reach. The publishers who do use multiple platforms think that they don’t need to put in the full effort on each platform.

When you decide to use a range of sites, the workload doesn’t disappear or stay the same. Each platform has a specific audience that requires a different approach. All of your accounts will require your undivided attention.

However, once you’ve figured out how to tailor your content to each network, you can take advantage of its monetization. Most platforms, like YouTube and Instagram, have built-in monetization. This means you can monetize your account once you reach a certain number of views or followers.

Beyond this, you can make even more cash by using ConvertSocial content monetization platform. ConvertSocial lets you monetize any account instantly. You don’t have to worry about meeting certain requirements first. ConvertSocial lets you monetize any platform you’re using, including:

  • WhatsApp;
  • Telegram;
  • Instagram;
  • Pinterest;
  • Snapchat;
  • LinkedIn.

 
When you’re uploading the same post to 20 different sites, it’s for your benefit to make money from it! Make sure to monetize your accounts in any way you can possibly think of.

Conclusion

When you understand your marketing skills, you can then choose the right affiliate program. The best affiliate is the one for whom you will put in the most effort. Don’t choose someone or a team that drives you insane!

However, if you accidentally partner with a lousy affiliate, you can just try another one. That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing.

If you don’t like the niche you’re advertising, choose a different one. If you don’t like the affiliate commission rates, find a better affiliate to partner with. If you don’t like the platform you’re advertising on, try a completely different site.

The Internet is a collection of endless opportunities to make money with affiliate marketing. You just need to find where your content fits in. You’ll find your audience somewhere!