What is Affiliate Marketing and How does it Work?

Earning money online has become a digital trend of the 21^st Century. The beauty about it is that most of the income generated is passive income.

Whether you own a website/blog or YouTube, there is always a way you can monetize your content in the best way possible.

One such way is through Affiliate Marketing.

This is a common search result on the google search engine especially when you google on “How to Make Money Online”

If you doubt, go try it for yourself.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing refers to a method of driving sales to a company or merchant indirectly by becoming an affiliate. You earn a commission whenever products or services are purchased through your own personal efforts.

Your prospects can be your friends and relatives or people with general interests on the offer.

Companies that offer Affiliate programs include web hosting (A2 Hosting), e-commerce stores (Jumia Ug), and big retail shops.

Often this is done through banner ads that can be placed on the websites and blogs or simply by sharing your personalized affiliate links within your circles.

Here is an illustration to make you understand the concept better.

A > Retailer/Merchant

B > Affiliate Partner (You)

C > Consumer (friends, relatives, strangers or blog readers)

How the Affiliate Marketing Process Works?

(A) has products/services to sell. But they are looking for cheaper ways to market or promote their product or service instead of the usual traditional advertising that are costly.

The Retailer/Merchant decides to make you their partner so you can introduce and promote their products/service to the people that trust you.

Since (C) doesn’t know about (A), (C) is very sceptical about buying any product from an unknown company. (A) is very aware of that fact but knows that (C) trust you at least.

Take for example, if you tell a friend a very good business opportunity, won’t your friend jump to conclusions about where and how to join?

Therefore (A) partners with you to use your goodwill and promote or introduce their products or service to (C).

No doubt that (C) might show interest in the offer because of the familiarity between you two.

Now (A) is more than prepared to pay you a commission for every sale made through you for referring (C) to their product or service.

(A) generates ad banners, unique links, and custom links for you that you can use to promote their products/services.

Now you decided to give a shot and try it out.

You register with the merchant affiliate program, your unique affiliate links, are generated and you post them on your website, blog, and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter.

When (C) visits the merchant’s site through your affiliate link and makes a purchase of the product/service of (A), (A) makes payment to you in form of a commission.

The commission is accumulating to the payment threshold (a certain amount) before (A) sends the payment to you through a PayPal account or Cheque.

And that’s all…

Note:

Affiliate marketing is not Network Marketing. Many people get confused when you tell them about affiliate marketing because they quickly jump to conclusions that if you don’t refer anyone you will not earn.

Yes, that’s true! You will not earn but nevertheless, Network Marketers depend on the number of sign-ups, the number of people in your networks, and how many products are sold by those people through their network.

UNLIKE

Affiliate Marketing, where users get paid for their efforts-whether sign-ups or it is driving sales.

Affiliate marketing has become a sure way to earn decent income over the years. Based on its popularity nowadays, it would be a shame if you’re able but not leverage the power of affiliate marketing.

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