Some internet marketing guru today started their journey with affiliate marketing no doubt.
If you planning to get started as an entrepreneur is it good you sell other people’s products (which is a model of affiliate marketing) before creating your product.
The main benefit that affiliate marketing can give you is a passive income.
Imagine making money while you are sleeping…isn’t that cool?
I guess you said YES!
The goal of affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products in other to earn percentage revenue shared with you by the merchant (more details soon what this means).
What is Affiliate Marketing?
According to Wikipedia, Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
Affiliate marketing is a good start for someone starting an online business.
Hence, Affiliate marketing can best be defined as the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make (Neil Patel).
However, Hubspot talks about 4 different parties that are involved: the merchant, the affiliate network, the publisher, and the consumer.
But were talked 3 about instead of 4.
When it comes to affiliate marketing only 3 parties are involved from start to finish. In the guide, I’m going to walk you through the roles of each party play in the affiliate marketing model.
Meanwhile, promoting other people’s products does not only define you as am an affiliate marketer.
You can be the product creation and as well be an affiliate marketer for your own products and that can result in a multi-screen of income for you.
Let look at the individual involved in the success of an affiliate marketing system.
The merchant: This is the creator of a product, also a seller and a vendor. they do all the hard work by creating the product from start to finish.
It can be an individual-based or company based merchant.
From solo entrepreneurs to startups to massive Fortune 500 companies, anyone could be the merchant behind an affiliate marketing program. They don’t even have to be actively involved. They just have to have a product to sell.
The Affiliate: This is also known as a publisher in the network, its main job is to lead a potential customer to the merchant sales funnel and if a purchase occurs then the affiliate gets rewarded a percentage share in an agreement between both parties.
Been an affiliate, you can promote multiple products at a time which can result in a hundred dollars in commission every month but limited to how much you can make, which can be determined by how dedicated you are.
Best way to start promoting a product as an affiliate is running a review blog. For example on Zac Johnson’s blog.
He writes about digital marketing and also review products on his blog as an affiliate.
The Consumer: The consumer and also called a customer is the big engine in the affiliate marketing model, without the customer the other’s won’t exist.
The affiliate can reach their dream customer and channel their offer to them using the social network, digital marketing or content marketing with the help of search engine optimization.
Some affiliates make it clear to their consumers about the “Earning disclaimer – Let them know that any item purchase with any link on their blog content, they tend to receive a small commission on them but some don’t.
So, the consumer doesn’t need to pay an extra fee to the affiliate when buying any products from the affiliate link – It’s already added as the retail fee by the merchant which is also the product creator.
The network: Few people consider the network as part of an affiliate marketing model because without a network anyone can run an affiliate marketing business successfully.