Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Affiliate marketing is perhaps the easiest way to start a lucrative business on the Internet. You have
probably heard or read this before. But how does it work?

In affiliate marketing, at least 3 parties interact with each other: the manufacturer or product provider,
the affiliate and the customer. The product provider has its products ready for sale. The affiliate
recommends one or more products to potential customers. If a customer buys products based on this
recommendation, the affiliate receives part of the profit from the sale as a commission from the product
provider. So the job of the affiliate is to recommend products to potential customers. He receives his
remuneration based on success if a purchase is made based on his recommendation. That doesn't sound
too complicated. Basically, it is not.

Affiliate Marketing (a new generation business idea)

Affiliate marketing has many advantages. As an affiliate, you do not need your own products, so you do
not need a warehouse and you do not have to worry about shipping. 

Of course, affiliate marketing also has disadvantages. Your business may be completely dependent on
one or only a few product providers. When they close their business or reduce their commissions, you
suddenly have less or no sales and you have to look for new product providers to work with. 

But these disadvantages are largely offset by the advantages. There is no other business model with
which you can start almost from a standing start and without major financial advance payments. You
can also protect yourself to a certain extent from the disadvantages. 

In practice, the separation of the individual steps is not so sharp and clear. Some things merge or run in
parallel. But to be clear about what you have to do, a clear process is the best guideline. So let's get
started!

Develop your mindset

If you have not heard about the topic of personality development, then this point will certainly seem
strange to you. But it is immensely important and that's why it comes first.

The mindset is the totality of your thoughts, feelings, ideas, wishes and imprinted behaviors. Your
mindset controls your overall behavior every day. All of this happens completely subconsciously,
without your conscious intervention. 

Before you even start building your affiliate business, you need to be clear about what and when you
want to achieve it. Surely you want to make more money from your business than you have now. But
"more money" is not a specific goal. Determine for yourself how much money (income, earnings, profits,
assets) you want to have and when. A specific goal would be when you want to have a monthly income
of ten thousand in the 12th month from now. This is specific in terms of the amount and when you want
to achieve this goal. You should write this down, preferably handwritten.
If you have your goal clearly in mind, then create in writing a schedule of smaller steps that will lead you
to the goal. You can take the above 7 steps as a rough guide. Always make short and long-term plans:
rough steps of what you want to achieve each month, smaller steps are your weekly goals or the tasks of
the week. Always set appointments until when you want to have which task (e.g. creating the website)
completed.

Choose the right affiliate program

Choosing the right affiliate partner can also determine success and failure. On the one hand, the affiliate
partners should match the content of the website. Anyone who writes about general topics is often well
advised with the program from Amazon or eBay, because there is the right article for almost every topic.
But not only are the partner's products decisive. What use is it if thousands of users are redirected to
the partner website but nobody buys anything there? Then of course no commission jumps out.

The conversion rate in the affiliate partner is a crucial factor. And finally, of course, good old money is
also important. The lower the commission, the more successful redirects are necessary. The relationship
between the conversion rate and the amount of the commission must be correct so that the partnership
is worthwhile.

Do's and don'ts for in-house partner programs

For most in-house partner programs, interested affiliates have to apply with their own website and their
personal data and will only be activated if they match the requirements set by the partner. Affiliates
often do not find out what requirements these are in addition to the relevance of the website for the
partner's products. However, it is advantageous if your own website is as traffic-intensive as possible
according to the search volume of the respective industry and has high-quality content and active users
who also click on advertising. But websites with few visitors can also generate high conversion rates and
are therefore attractive for partners.

How exactly the remuneration and the framework conditions of a partner program look like varies a lot?
It is therefore particularly important to read carefully and understand what conditions are accepted.

Not only can the commission vary in amount and type (see "How is remuneration paid?"), But also
reasons for termination and prohibitions. Some partners allow themselves to terminate without reason
on their terms - and there are known cases in which accumulated amounts were subsequently no longer
paid out.

Similarly, some affiliate programs prohibit running AdWords campaigns on certain keywords so that the
affiliate's website is not in direct competition with the partner's corporate website regarding those
keywords. If such regulations are violated, some partners not only block the affiliate's account, but
sometimes even impose high contractual penalties.

You should also make sure that the partner program can also regulate the environment of the affiliate
link on your own website - no Ad Sense advertising for certain keywords, no affiliate marketing for
competing partners, etc.
But such in-house partner programs are not the only option. Affiliate networks are often open to
everyone and are particularly suitable for interested parties with a high-quality website that does not
necessarily fit the large in-house partner programs due to its industry, focus, etc.

Create affiliate sites and use social networks

If you do not want to use your own website (s) for the purposes of affiliate marketing, or if you do not
only want to do affiliate marketing on the side, but really want to use it, you can create separate affiliate
pages.

The advantage: A separate website can be created for each industry and niche, which attracts interested
customers who are also ready to buy. Let's take an invented example product, so as not to advertise a
specific page: Xyz is a miracle comb. This product sells online shop V, which operates a partner program.
I want to earn money with Xyz, so I create a page XyzY-online. I fill this website with high-quality content
and use search engine optimization techniques to bring them as far forward as possible in the ranking of
Google and Co. If I have succeeded in doing so, a majority of users who are interested in the product and
are ready to buy will probably come to my site - why else should you visit a website called Xyz. Now I
have very good chances to embed the affiliate link to Shop V meaningfully, so that these interested
users click on it, and to earn money through the commission.

Affiliate sites of this kind are sometimes not to be compared with spam sites today, among other things
due to the updates of the Google search algorithm, but are sometimes equipped with high-quality
content. So the user is informed at the same time and can buy the product directly by following the
affiliate link.

Many price comparison sites work on a similar principle. You don't need such a specialization because
they show different travel destinations, airlines and hotels. If users find a cheap trip on such price
comparison sites, follow the link to the organizer's website and book there, the operators of the price
comparison page receive a commission.

Affiliate links can also be distributed via social networks. Whether in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and
Co., affiliate links can be integrated just as well with text links and images. However, sometimes
(depending on the conditions of the partner program) only the successes paid for by the partner that are
achieved via the website with which you applied - each additional distribution of the link may bring
reach, but no profit.

Final words

Patience brings roses, if you want to get rich with affiliate marketing overnight, you should be prepared
for a bitter disappointment. As with any other activity, affiliate marketing takes perseverance and hard
work to achieve success. If you are not willing to invest time and effort, you should not have any
illusions. Many people fail to make a living with affiliate marketing - precisely because they hoped for
quick money. It can take a long time to gain a large readership and a good search engine ranking. Those
who are not prepared for this often give up discouraged after a few weeks. From one day to the next,
nobody will get rich through affiliate marketing.

But discipline and perseverance pay off. If you can do it, you can't just make a good income. He can also
decide how, when and where he works. It is actually worth giving a little more at the beginning.