How To Make Money Online Through Affiliate Marketing In 2021?
There has never been a better time to make money online with affiliate marketing. The past year has changed many aspects of life from work to leisure. One thing it also has changed is online purchasing behavior. More people than ever before are making purchases online, which presents opportunities for people across the world to monetize this, through a number of methods.
When you have been researching “Making Money Online” you have likely come across several methods, including; Google Ads, Brand Partnership, affiliate marketing, and much more. If you are looking to earn a passive income, affiliate marketing is a great place to start, the concept is relatively simple: you promote other businesses’ products or services and if a purchase is made via your promotion you will receive a commission.
As the business you are promoting has everything set up for you (e.g. logistics, landing pages, and tracking of the affiliate link), getting started couldn’t be simpler. Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online as you have full control over the industries and brands you promote.
Unlike traditional advertising methods (Google’s AdSense) which would only be viable if you had a fully functioning website with significant traffic. Furthermore, you have little control over what adverts will show up on your content. Affiliate marketing can be started from nothing and, given time, allowed to grow into a successful side hustle or fully-fledged business.
Now you have decided affiliate marketing is going to be the method of choice for earning a passive income, there are a few boxes we need to tick in the setting up process, including picking a platform, picking a program, and learning about the world of making money with affiliate marketing.
Select your platform
Once you have decided that affiliate marketing is the method you are going to use for making money online, the first step is to pick which platform you are going to use to promote your brands. There are more options than ever before to promote your affiliate link. Below are just a few that are worth a mention.
Whether you have 500 followers or 5 million you can still monetize your Instagram using affiliate marketing. Instagram affiliate marketing is ideal if you are looking to target an audience with a demographic of between 16-27 years old. The Instagram affiliate would be a great platform if you are looking to promote a program in the fashion or beauty industry.
Founded in 2010 Instagram now has over 700 million users worldwide. This opens an enormous audience that only a few platforms can offer. Many micro-influencers monetize their following using affiliate marketing.
– Blog
If you are looking to make money online with affiliate marketing, the blog is a great platform to use. If you enjoy producing written content and have a passion for a subject, blogging may be the platform for you. You can create free blogs using sites such as Blogger and WordPress.
Once the content is created, placing affiliate links into it is straightforward. This is still an extremely common way that both big and small blogs make money or add another revenue stream to their blog.
– Website
Although one of the hardest to get started, many people make money online with affiliate marketing through a website. There are endless website models, and the majority can be monetized by affiliate programs. Many websites are looking to make money using affiliate marketing, using a “comparison model”. For example, they create a simple directory, highlighting key features, pros, and cons, of a product or service.
The key to this is to make it as niche as possible, although the addressable audience is much smaller you have a much better chance of ranking high in the large search engines.
Behind every product will be an affiliate link, in which the website owner will earn a commission every time a purchase is made via their comparison website. Luckily in this day and age, you don’t have to be a coding genius to create a user-friendly and engaging website. With businesses such as WordPress and Wix, you can create a good website with little experience.
One of the kings of social media, Facebook is a great place to launch your affiliate marketing campaign. As you will likely be promoting to your “friends” campaigns on Facebook often produce engaging and profitable affiliate campaigns.
With a similar demographic to Instagram, Facebook can be a great way of reaching a young audience.
– YouTube
“Find the link in the description” is a phrase you may have become familiar with when watching YouTube. More often than not this “Link” is an affiliate link that allows YouTubers to monetize the products and services they have mentioned in their Video.
YouTube is a great way to promote your affiliate link because the link is introduced by the content creator who has a loyal and engaged following, so they tend to produce a great return for the creator.
The key is to create honest and high-quality content to attract traffic, then monetizing this traffic comes relatively easy.
– Podcasts
Seeing a re-birth in popularity, podcasts can be a great and profitable way to make money by promoting your affiliate link. That method may not be for everyone but if you enjoy creating content this method may be for you. How you would implement affiliate marketing into this platform is simply to place the tracked link somewhere on the site or in the bio.
In summary, to pick which platform is best for you there are a few factors to consider. Firstly which platform are you most comfortable on, for example, you don’t want to be setting up a comparison site if you have never run and optimized a website before. Secondly, if you already have a larger following on one put that to the front of the race. You want to give yourself as many advantages as possible. Finally, what demographic is your target market? Depending on the demographic of your target market this can help you pick which platform, simply match your demographic with the demographic of the platform you are looking to run the campaign on. By considering these factors you increase your chances of running a successful affiliate marketing campaign.
Pick your Affiliate Program
Now you have picked what platform you are going to use, an equally important factor of running a successful affiliate program is to pick the best affiliate program for you and your audience. Picking out of thousands of affiliate programs, across hundreds of sectors can be extremely difficult. Below are just factors worth considering when picking which affiliate program you are wanting to run.
What to consider:
– Cookie lifespan of the program.
– Commission.
– What are your interests and passions?
– Review of the affiliate program.
You want to consider all of the above when picking which affiliate program you want to promote. A common beginner’s mistake is to let the single factor of commission sway their decision and discard the other factors. Other factors include who is the program being run with, for example, if the program is run by multiple networks (Tradedouble, Awin) one network may offer a better commission than another.
A good starting point to narrow down the options are to look through affiliate programs in industries you are genuinely interested in and have a passion for. As it will be the content around the affiliate link that will determine the success of the affiliate market campaign.
Be patient & Optimise
Optimizing and perfecting affiliate marketing takes time, learning the ropes doesn’t happen overnight. Many affiliate beginners will give affiliate marketing a go for one campaign and give up, like everything in life you need to be persistent and learn from your past mistakes. A tip is to run as many tests as possible, then through your analysis, you can easily see what campaign is producing a better ROI. Getting started is the hardest part!
Summary
In summary affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online in 2021. With full control and huge earning potential, affiliate marketing can be a small passive income that buys you a trip away once a year, all the way to a full-time job, and everything in between. The key to success is to try and base it around a genuine passion and learn as you go. Another benefit of being in the world of affiliate marketing is that you can adapt and change the program you are promoting based on trends in the market. The best tip is to simply get started!
