So there seems to be a lot of confusion around making money as an affiliate marketer when you don’t actually have a product of your own to sell.
The old school of thought was that if you are to make any money at all in business, then you need to own or manufacture a product or service and sell it.
No surprizes there.
Those days are still here, however the difference now is that the companies actively look for people to sell their goods on their behalf, and in return they pay a percentage of the sale to the seller.
This percentage is referred to as a commission.
The person responsible for the sale is called an affiliate.
Effectively an affiliate is a salesperson, so you can imagine why companies are interested in this model.
It’s because it allows them to generate more sales without hiring thousands of salespeople. However, the salesperson doesn’t have to be a qualified salesperson (if that even exists) the person can be anyone (usually over the age of 18) , which typically include moms, dads, students, you name it.
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What Is Affiliate Marketing?
So hopefully you now understand what an affiliate is – right? No?
In a sentence – It’s someone who gets paid a commission from a sale that they orchestrated.
For example if I recommended a baby stroller to one of my friends who recently had a baby, and they bought the stroller from Amazon using my unique affiliate link, then a portion of the sale will come to me, because I was responsible for the sale.
It doesn’t affect how much they paid for the stroller, so your friend isn’t charged a premium price on top of the sale price either, which makes it a win – win situation for all parties concerned.
Therefore affiliate marketing basically refers to affiliates who actively market a product that they’re affiliated with.
So if I wanted to market Wireless headphones to people, then I could create a wireless headphones website that not only appealed to that market, but also consistently attracted people who were actively searching for that information – like I have done here.
So an affiliate who actively markets a product or service is usually referred to as an affiliate marketer.
How Do You Become An Affiliate Of A Product?
Becoming an affiliate is a fairly easy process.
Usually it requires that you fill out an online form, which allows the Vendor to identify whether you’re a good match for what it is they’re selling. If you are then you’ll get approved in 2 to 3 days.
Having said that, there are other affiliate programs that will give you instant approval like Clickbank.com for example. Amazon.com is also to get approval also, however this is subject to where you live and sometimes what state you live in.
All of these kind of rules are specific to each Vendor.
How Are The Sales Tracked?
The sales are usually tracked by a unique affiliate url that is assigned to you.
This allows the Vendor to accurately calculate the commissions owed to you.
Therefore it’s important to ensure you’re using the correct affiliate link before you send visitors off to the product.
When Do You Get Paid?
The frequency of payments are totally up to the affiliate program owners.
But most frequencies are Quarterly, Monthly or Weekly.
How Do You Get Paid?
This depends on the affiliate owners as well.
Most payout by check, direct deposits, paypal and gifts cards.
Benefits For The Vendor
As I mentioned before, the appeal of having an affiliate program for the Vendor is that they effectively get an unlimited number of people creating sales opportunities not only locally, but worldwide.
Benefits For The Affiliate
The benefit of becoming an affiliate is that 1) You don’t have to create a product or service yourself, because you’re selling other peoples products. 2) Someone else takes care of the fulfilment process, which means you don’t have to worry about shipping products or handling cash, and 3) If you’re good at driving targeted visitors to a product or service then you can easily earn a full-time income working for any where in the world.
Hope that clears things up a little.
If you have more questions then please leave them in the comment section below.
Best,
Frank
Learn how to create your own affiliate marketing business here.
Frank
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