If you’re considering becoming an affiliate marketer, you probably want to know is affiliate marketing legit.
It’s because there’s a lot of misinformation about affiliate marketing. However, this article will clear up your doubts.
It evaluates the legitimacy, requirements, and profitability of affiliate marketing. Today affiliate marketing is quite popular because of eCommerce platforms such as Amazon, Rakuten, etc. However, the first affiliate marketing program began in 1994.
But the largest eCommerce platform, Amazon, launched its affiliate program in 1996. It’s the longest-running affiliate program and a model for others. So, let’s find out,
Is Affiliate Marketing Legit?
Absolutely yes, affiliate marketing is a popular and modern form of advertising. With affiliate marketing, you’ll earn revenue if a person clicks and purchases a product through your link.
It is legal and offers good returns; thus, you can make good money from it. Companies/ brands use affiliate marketing to expand and get new clients through partnerships quickly.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
It’s a partnership between a company and an individual who promotes their products and services.
Most affiliate marketers use websites and social media platforms to promote product links. The affiliate marketer then earns a commission on any successful sales through their links.
1. How To Become an Affiliate Marketer
Companies always promote their affiliate marketing programs as a low-effort alternative to earn extra income.
The amazing part is that becoming an affiliate marketer is fast and easy. Here are the steps to help you launch your career in affiliate marketing.
2. Identify a Niche
To be successful in affiliate marketing, you should establish yourself within a niche. The niche you choose determines the type of products you’ll promote. The popular niches in eCommerce platforms are:
- Home: baby products, utensils, plants, etc.
- Heath: weight loss products, fitness nutrition
- Money: investing, personal finance, bitcoin
- Lifestyle: airlines, jewelry, luxury, etc.
You can choose a niche you are passionate about or one that offers higher profitability. The business-related niches usually have the highest commissions while others, like books and clothing, have the lowest.
Plus, working for a specific niche enables people to see you as an expert and will trust you more. Create amazing content for the products to showcase your experience in the area.
3. Choose an Affiliate Program
After selecting your ideal niche, you need to identify an affiliate program. You should choose a program with products that align with your niche. However, programs such as Amazon offer products across all niches.
You can choose your program from the marketplace or directly. If you already know the brands that offer products in your niche, directly approach them and sign up for their affiliate program. Signing up for an affiliate program is usually free.
Some popular brands have affiliate programs and thousands of products in various niches. They include:
It would be best if you don’t choose a brand because of its popularity. Instead, pick a brand offering a high commission rate and EPC (Earnings per Click).
Alternatively, you can choose a program with a low commission rate but a high EPC. It is still worthwhile to join.
4. Choose Your Marketing Chanel
Various marketing channels can help you in affiliate marketing, such as websites or social media platforms.
Note that you don’t need to be a blogger with a website to succeed in affiliate marketing. However, you can invest in one of the businesses that need to scale up.
The popular social media platforms that can help you generate affiliates include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. You can also use forum-based platforms such as Quora and Reddit.
5. Create Content
Regardless of your chosen platform, you should know that content is crucial. Create high-quality and educative content that’ll help you build trust with your audience/ clients. There are different types of content for affiliate marketing, such as:
- Product reviews
- Q&As
- Tutorials
- How-to articles
- Tips and tricks
When creating content, you should critically consider keywords, especially for YouTube SEO. Without proper SEO optimization, people might fail to recognize your high-quality content. Different tools such as surfer can help you with keyword research.
In addition, you should always include your affiliate links in the content.
6. Grow Your Audience
Most brands will verify you as their affiliate marketer only when you have a huge following on social platforms.
If you plan to use email marketing, you need to build a credible mail list. With a contact list, you won’t rely on social media platforms to reach your audience.
Sometimes these major social media platforms do have their drawbacks. You can always depend on email marketing when they go down.
Grow your social media audience by sending friend requests and joining groups. After growing your audience and building trust using your content, start promoting your affiliate links.
Types Of Affiliate Marketers
So, you now know what affiliate marketing is and how to become an affiliate marketer. Today this program is so popular across various eCommerce platforms. The affiliate marketers are a diverse group that includes:
Bloggers and Social Media Mavens
Firstly, bloggers are the oldest and organically market products to their audience. On the other hand, bloggers can be the very niche. They’ll offer detailed information about products they are passionate about.
Their impeccable research skills also enable them to choose products their audience strongly resonates with.
Authors, High Profile Leaders, and Influencers
You’ve probably heard about the influencer because it’s a buzzword today. The influencer roles are so in line with affiliate marketing.
Influencers make good money through affiliates by marketing the right product to the right audience.
Authors, leaders, and influencers usually have a strong audience and can earn thousands with the right affiliate programs. Amazingly, they can get ongoing revenue as long as the content lives on.
Comparison/ Review Sites
Such websites review products for a particular audience. Others compare their products with those of competing brands. Therefore, it’s easy for such websites to incorporate affiliate links into their reviews.
After reviewing the products, they push the message through various channels like social media, YouTube, etc.
App and Solution Type Partners
They are strategic partnerships where services/ products appear in front of app partners for a specific audience.
They include shopping apps that can help one find the best sneakers at a great price. Or a beauty app that has a specific perfume brand etc.
What Makes Affiliate Marketing A Good Business Model?
Affiliate marketing can be an amazing career or side hustle. An average affiliate marketer in the United States can make approximately $52,000 yearly.
Therefore, meaning you can depend on affiliate marketing to make a living. Here are some of the reasons why affiliate marketing is great.
Its Low Risk
You don’t need start-up funds to become an affiliate marketer. You can begin as long as you have an established social media platform or website. Therefore your cost as a marketer will always stay low.
The only thing you’ll commit to the program is time. Note the business/ company will only pay you when you sell a product through your affiliate link.
It’s Remote
You can work from any place and anytime. Affiliate marketing is ideal if you love living a digital nomad life.
However, you must comply with labor laws and work-related taxes. Plus, creating quality content can be time-consuming.
But it’s worthwhile in the long run; the content will generate commissions months and years later.
It’s a Win For Everyone
The business makes money from your sales while you get commissions in return. Plus, the customers also benefit by finding ideal products for their needs.
Your content helps them to make a purchase decision. In the long run, content also boosts trust between you and your customers.
Generally, a beginner affiliate marketer must be willing to invest time and effort. The most important thing is focusing on the fundamentals, like selecting a niche and marketing channel.
Amazingly, there are various free platforms to launch your affiliate career, such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.
The affiliate programs offer beginners access to thousands of products. If you have a great strategy, you can start making money immediately.
How To Become Successful In Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is simply a low-effort way of earning extra income. Generating commissions need more than just posting links on various platforms.
The initial investments and risks in affiliate marketing aren’t monetary. It’s time you invest in building an audience and promoting various products.
Here is the most important prerequisite that will make affiliate marketing worth the effort and time.
1. Have a Connection With The Product
You don’t need to sell all the products to succeed in affiliate marketing. However, a deep understanding of particular products will help you easily convince people to buy them. You should choose the products you like; it will be easier to give details about them.
For example, if you are passionate about gaming, you can sell games and consoles. Note that it’s good to show how a product practically works. Do not just talk about it superficially.
2. Huge and Engaged Audience
Becoming an expert in a particular niche is nothing without an audience. If the products you want to focus on have some complexity, surely start by developing some expertise. This way, you’ll be able to offer valuable information to your audience.
Always offer honest reviews on particular products to earn your audience’s trust. Answer all your audience’s queries while offering them guides and tutorials.
3. Match Products With Your Audience
You’ll be much more successful as an affiliate marketer if your match your audience with the right products.
Experts recommend that you select a niche you’re passionate about, which is good. But it would help if you also considered the demand for products in your niche. Identify products that are in high demand.
When creating content, aim for relevant and high-ranking keywords. They’ll boost your content’s visibility and interactions, earning you more commissions.
4. Always Add Value
Your goal shouldn’t only be connecting prospects with merchant products. There’s no harm with being a traffic-focused affiliate that relies on keyword ranking. However, by being a value-adding partner, you will win more trust.
People will see you as an expert and the to-go-to person. Amazingly you can create high-quality content that offers value and add the right keywords. The keywords will surely attract visitors with the intent to purchase.
Always use products and topics that relate to your audience. Therefore, they won’t only see you as a connector but also as an advisor.
5. Don’t Give Up
Most people that try affiliate marketing tend to give up easily if they don’t see immediate success.
You should have realistic expectations and goals. Carefully monitor your performance to see what works well and what does not.
Make changes in case of any issues; it’ll help boost your earnings. Overall, you can start earning big as an affiliate marketer overnight; it needs time and effort.
Why Do Affiliate Marketers Run Into Legal Troubles?
Most affiliate marketers get into legal trouble because of fraud involvement. Some affiliate marketers don’t disclose their earnings when sharing various links. This is simply a violation of their guidelines.
Each affiliate marketer should inform they are promoting a product and will get monetary benefits. The information is always in the term and conditions of the website or privacy policy page.
There are other specific guidelines too. For example, affiliate marketers should ensure all links have clear disclosure.
Advertisements should have a sponsorship or endorsement label. Plus, the potential customer should be able to contact the company for more information about the product easily.
Conclusion
The article has answered the question, is affiliate marketing legit? Now that you know affiliate marketing is legit, you can launch your career. Affiliate marketing is among the best programs that offer a steady passive or side income.
You can succeed with the right strategies in product selection, creating high-quality content, and channels. Overall, affiliate marketing is legit, low-cost to start, and profitable.
