When offering Affiliate Marketing tips for beginners, the best place to start is to go over exactly what Affiliate Marketing is.
Affiliate Marketing is form of marketing where individuals (called affiliates) promote products or a business in exchange for either a percentage of the sales they generate, or a specified dollar amount.
While that might sound complicated, it isn’t. Not only is it simple, but you’ve probably done this before, even if you haven’t been paid for it.
Have you ever bought something that you really liked, so you told your friends and family about it, and then they went out and bought that item? It could be a book, clothes, electronics, food, or anything really.
This is affiliate marketing, and in that case, you were the affiliate – you just didn’t make any money for doing it.
As an affiliate, you would have a relationship with certain companies, and you would get a percentage of the revenue brought in when you referred someone to one of these companies.
Now, since we’re talking about online stores, you might worry that we’re talking about only digital products, or websites that you’ve never heard of before.
If that’s the case, you might be surprised to know that many of your favorite stores have affiliate programs. Here are just a few of them, and I’m sure you’ve heard of (if not shopped at) all of them: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Macy’s, Sears, Wal-Mart, and so many others. There are thousands of companies with affiliate programs, and you can be a part of as many of them as you’d like, as long as they accept you.
Here is an example of an affiliate link, and if someone were to click through that link and buy something, I would get a (very small) percentage of the revenue.
I enjoy shopping at Amazon.com, because their prices are so low.
It really is that easy.
Before you get worried, it’s free to sign up to be an affiliate, and they pay you when people you refer buy something…you never have to pay them anything.
So if you like the idea of getting paid to tell people about products or stores that you like, this could be a great way for you to earn money!
In future posts, I’ll talk more about Affiliate Marketing, like how to get started, how to become an affiliate of these companies, and how to start making money with them.