The Ultimate Guide to Generating Sales with

Affiliate Marketing: Expert Tips Collection

Beginner’s Guide
To Affiliate
Marketing
edit by Web Hosting Advices

2023/2024
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Contents
Affiliate Marketing Strategies For Beginners .................................................................................. 3

Understanding affiliate marketing .............................................................................................. 3

Types Of Affiliate Programs......................................................................................................... 4

Earning with CPA Programs ............................................................................................................ 6

Rule 1 – Promote A relevant product ......................................................................................... 6

Rule 2 – Cloaked Links ................................................................................................................. 6
Rule 3 – Product, Service, or Merchant Reputation ................................................................... 7
Rule 4 – Buy, Use, Experience and Promote ............................................................................... 7

Choosing a Niche ............................................................................................................................. 8

Promote The Established Products and Services ............................................................................ 9

Email Marketing ............................................................................................................................ 10

Sales Funnel .................................................................................................................................. 11

Content Marketing ........................................................................................................................ 12

Use of Banners .............................................................................................................................. 13

High-Ticket Products ..................................................................................................................... 14

Landing Page Promotion ............................................................................................................... 15

Building Trust with Social Proof .................................................................................................... 16

Scarcity Marketing Of Affiliate Products ....................................................................................... 17

 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing
In this guide, I’ll show you 10 affiliate marketing strategies you can use to leverage your
online income.
Strategies For Beginners
If you read this income report, you know that most bloggers earn most of their income
doing affiliate marketing.

Understanding Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is making money by selling the products you haven’t created. You pick
an outstanding product, become its affiliate and market it in pursuit of making sales.
Once a qualified sale is made, you get a fixed percentage of commission.
For thousands of bloggers, affiliate marketing is the key to their passive income.
The illustration below will give you a mind map of the complete affiliate marketing
process:
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Types Of Affiliate Programs are:

1. CPC
2. CPA
3. Recurring
4. Bonded
You would have heard of the first two, however, the latter one may confuse you. Below
I’ve explained how all four of them differ and work and after that, we will discuss which
one works the best (and for whom).
1. CPC – CPC stands for cost per click. When you join an affiliate program that gives
you a commission based on CPC, you get a commission whenever a person clicks on your
affiliate links, banners, or other marketing materials such as custom images and
infographics.
This term is often used in the impression-based advertisement sector, however, some
affiliate programs do pay with these criteria.

2. CPA – CPA Stands for cost per action. In this mode of Affiliate marketing, you get a
commission only when a visitor converts into a paying customer for the merchant you are
promoting. That means, the person you’ve referred to the merchant should buy
something in order to make your referral eligible for a fixed commission such as WPengine
affiliate
When you join a program that pays you on a CPC basis, it means that you have to drive
real customers to that merchant which will do an action such as buying a product, renting
a product or giving a lead.

3. Recurring – Must similar to what the word recurring stands for, The recurring paying
affiliate programs are the one which pays you again and again either for a fixed period of
time or for the lifetime.
Recurring commissions means you have to refer a customer once and then on, anytime
the customer renews or extends its subscription, you will be paid a commission. This
where you generate truly passive income – refer a customer once, and make money till
they continue to pay the merchant.
The criteria can be seen on SaaS and hosting affiliate programs which require recurring
payment by the customer for using the service. Examples – Cloudways, SEMrush etc.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

4. Bonded – This is far most the highest paying and “not so popular” affiliate program
commission rule. The bonded commission system goes like this – You refer a customer to
an online course or subscription-based product website.
The customer then fills up a form and generates a lead and enters in the sales funnel of
the company. That’s it.
The customer is then bonded to you. Every activity of this customer will be tracked and if
any further sales are made by this customer, you will be paid.
When an affiliate program pays you on a bonded commission’s rule, it means that your
affiliate commissions will be paid without you doing anything at all.
Based on the above four types of affiliate marketing, you should be choosing and
promoting the products which would pay you a recurring commission.
However, it still has a small share in terms of merchants to promote. The most famous
and openly practiced affiliate marketing type is the CPA. Almost every other merchant has
an affiliate program which pays you on a CPA basis.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Earning with CPA Programs

Affiliate programs generally pay for Cost per action. to make most out of your sales, you
need to make sure you choose products based on certain standards and rules.
I follow a couple of rules and set of norms before promoting any product on my blog and
below, I’ve shared all of it.

Rule 1 – Promote A relevant product

Following up on my previous agenda I won’t promote any irrelevant product on this blog.
Neither it creates a sale nor it impresses any of the visitors at all.
I recommend you to choose the affiliate products very carefully. A few months back, I
found an incredible affiliate marketplace called Flexoffers. It’s great to find high-paying
affiliate programs every niche possible.
I searched for WordPress and web services niche on flexoffers and found several affiliate
programs including MaxCDN and Popup domination.
Promotion of relevant products has been a major contributor to my affiliate earnings.
From $200 to more than $1000/month in 6 months of blogging, I have seen a lot of tactics
that support you in escalating your affiliate income.
It helps my readers to make a better decision as they can relate to the product I am
promoting. You can check out some income and traffic reports here.

Rule 2 – Cloaked Links

Cloaking my affiliates links have given me a sense of peace. I don’t have to fear that my
affiliate earnings would be stolen or I won’t be paid for my hard work. I Have discussed it
in detail here.
It also helps me to track the percentage of valid clicks as well as it provides branding for
external links. With a link cloaking plugin, you don’t have to manually add a Nofollow
attribute (which keeps my SEO healthy)to each and every link and this also helps the link
management by stacking them into categories.
I suggest you add a link cloaking plugin as soon as possible because it will help you to work
more efficiently if you start doing it from the very beginning. I am using
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

ThirstyAffiliates on my blog since 2017 and it works great. Here is a step by step guide to
cloaking your first affiliate link.

Rule 3 – Product, Service, or Merchant Reputation

This is one of the most important aspects to look for before promoting a merchant,
product or service on your blog. It might happen that a product may seem to be very
promising at first, but what about its performance. Is it accurate enough, is it stands on
industry standards, do people love it?
You should do thorough research on the past and present of a product you are going to
promote and make sure it is reputable enough and stand on its promises.

Rule 4 – Buy, Use, Experience, and Promote

This rule is excellent in making cents to dollars. Before you promote a product, Buy it.
Think of this purchase as an investment. Take a few days and discover the inner sides of
the product and try to find in-depth pros and cons.
After having a first-hand experience of the product, write a detailed review or an in- depth
tutorial mentioning the experience and time you had with the product. Add your opinions
and tricks and help people better understand the product.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

How to Choose a Niche?

Choosing a profitable niche in affiliate marketing is crucial for success. Here's a
concise guide to help you make the right decision:

1. Passion & Knowledge: Start with your interests and expertise. A niche you're
passionate about will keep you motivated, and your knowledge will help you create
valuable content.

2. Market Research: Analyze potential niches for demand, competition, and

profitability. Use tools like Google Trends, keyword research, and competitor
analysis to gauge market viability.

3. Affiliate Programs: Research affiliate programs related to your chosen niches.

Look for high commission rates, reliable tracking, and good product quality.

4. Target Audience: Identify your target audience's pain points and needs within the
niche. Understand their preferences and tailor your content to resonate with them.

5. Monetization Options: Ensure your niche offers multiple monetization

opportunities, such as affiliate products, digital products, or advertising revenue.

6. Longevity & Trends: Consider the long-term sustainability of the niche. Avoid
trends that may fade quickly and opt for evergreen topics with consistent demand.

7. Test & Iterate: Start small, test your strategies, and measure results. Be ready to
adjust and pivot if needed.

8. Legal & Ethical Compliance: Ensure your chosen niche aligns with legal and ethical
standards.
To help you get started, here are a few niches examples:

● Hobby Niches – Photography, Travel, Sports betting, Event Tickets

● Money Niches – Debt Settlement, Bitcoin, Investing, Credit card, Mortgage

● Health, and Fitness Niches – Weight Loss, Fitness, Yoga, Organic, Nutrition,
Vegan

● Lifestyle Niches – Luxury, Cruises, Travel, Online dating, Airlines, Fashion,

Jewelry

● Home & Family Niches – Home security, Coffee, Baby products, Dogs,
Gardening

● Tech Niches– Web hosting, WordPress, VPN, SaaS, Gaming, Software

● Alternative Niches – Forex, Art, Essential oils, Herbal, Personal development

Promote The Established Products and
Services
Tough to Generate When it comes to selecting the product for promotion, many affiliate
marketers are missing out on this.
It’s quite a sale or even a lead by promoting a fairly new product as an affiliate where all
fo your earnings depend on a sale. So what I do is I pick a product from one of my similar
niche site that is converting well enough to promote.
This helps me to build a relationship with pre-existing merchants that are seeing good
results from my niche website and this helps me to get exclusive offers too.
Let’s take an example. LongTailPro is a keyword research tool which is has a sales ratio of
16.2 (approx) out of every 100 leads on one of a blog. I see it’s converting very well on
some of the blogs that are similar to my niche.
Now there is a fairly new keyword research tool called KWfinder which is having a lesser
sales count and is not converting well enough.
In this case, I can confidently promote LongTailPro on my blog. This has helped to verify
the quality of the products as well as the need of my readers without spending a single
cent.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Similarly, for hosting, I know Bluehost performs exceptionally well due to it’s an attractive
and straightforward landing page. I can signup for Bluehost affiliate and promote it
without any worries since it delivers the highest quality of service to most of the
beginners.
This will work for you forever. Use it and I hope your sales will double at least in 30 days
or less.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Email Marketing
Here’s a spoiler:
Email marketing is the most effective affiliate marketing strategy in any niche and for
any product
Email marketing is one of the hidden strategies for generating direct affiliate sales faster
than any medium. Since the beginning of online communication, email has been a
sustainable source to connect with customers and readers.
However, List building today is helping many bloggers and online marketers generate
thousands of sales with minimal efforts for a long time. The first step to email marketing
is setting up an email marketing service.
On the next stage, you will have to collect as much as emails possible by using some lead
generation plugins and tools. This will help you to convert your visitors into potential
customers.

A very great way of earning through affiliate marketing is setting up automated emails
which work on autopilot and give you more time to focus on further campaigns that will
generate more income and profit for you. You can also add a signature affiliate link to your
emails for a product you use regularly and would love to recommend to your subscribers
too.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Sales Funnel
Sales funnel is a multi-scale project. You can set up a sales funnel to promote an affiliate
product strategically. This can be done on your website but the best of the sales funnel
can be extracted by pairing it up with email marketing.

Sales funnel works this way – You capture a lead through one of the optin forms on your
website. Once the subscriber confirms it’s the subscription to your funnel list, the
promotion starts.
The first email is a set to give a sense of introduction and getting familiar with your
subscriber. This doesn’t include any affiliate promotion in any case. keep it as personalized
as possible to create a remarkable first impression that stays forever.
The second email is set to ask your reader about their interests and opinions. You can also
include a QnA in your email to acquire the list of problems they are facing.
The third email will include an affiliate link to the most relevant product or service that is
the best option you think about solving a particular problem. Remember to show them
the value by including your personal experience with it and most importantly, Try to write
the emails to a mentor rather than being too sales~ish.
 The Affiliate Marketing Strategies for
Beginners

Content Marketing
If you never came to this term, I will assume you are unaware of how the blog works for
a website. when we say to promote a product on a blog by writing a post or if we say
driving traffic to a website through creating content, to promote a product for a
commission, It’s all content marketing.
Simplified – Content marketing is about driving targeted traffic that generates sales
through useful and powerful content.
When I write a blog post about a keyword research tool for PPC, or when I write about
the Mailerlite or about the fiverr affiliate program, it’s all content marketing.
Here, I am trying to drive traffic from search engines in order to send more traffic and
generate more sales on these websites which pay me the commission on every successful
one.
My content helps me market these products which in turn helps me to earn money since
I am an affiliate to whatever I am promoting.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Use of Banners
Banners are generally easy to use and work on autopilot. Set it and forget it. since we are
talking about affiliate promotion banners here, we will be paid for any action that is made
by a visitor we refer.
However, I strategically place every promotion banners so that people with different
interest see a different banner.

If you will browse a post from WordPress category, You will See a Hostgator banner
between the post after 5 paragraphs. This helps me to get the maximum click on that
banner as people who are browsing the post from WordPress category should be
interested in WordPress hosting.
Similarly, I place a HubSpot banner in the online marketing category and Media.net
banner in make money category. I suggest you do the same and in a few moments, you
will observe a better CTR and action on your affiliate banners.
I use WPAdvanced Ads plugin for grouping and Ad rotation. This plugin helps me to target
specific regions as well as visitors differently. The Advanced ads plugin helps me to Geo-
Target my banners as well.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

High-Ticket Products
Sure. This needs to be done. I promote many small as well as micro paying products on
BforBloggers, But that doesn’t help me to earn a living out of it.
Some products such as Sucuri and Updraftplus pay a very low commission to its affiliates.
I still promote them because I use and trust them.
However, I do promote some high-paying products such as Kinsta hosting. Why? Because
when I talk to one of their team members or their affiliate managers, they give a series of
certified customers with testimonials that prove they are best in the business.
High ticket products need to be promoted because they fill the gap between low earnings
and high expenses. When choosing high-ticket products, All of the same rules apply as we
discussed above. You can find such programs from marketplaces such as ShareASale.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Landing Page Promotion

Landing pages need to be curated. When a visitor first lands on your website and finds
your content interesting, the visitor is likely to explore more about you by going to your
homepage.

If your landing pages have nothing but a simple pale appearance, you will eventually lose
the sales. To make most out of your landing pages, either convert it into a lead capture
page or make it a visitor funnel.
Read this guide to find your top landing pages and then, get yourself the Elementor Or
LeadPages landing page builder. By using LeadPages, you can create high converting
landing pages with a drag and drop builder.
You can also set up a funnel system through these pages. Imagine a visitor coming onto
your landing page. the visitor then scrolls a little bit down and finds an interactive and
beautiful demonstration of how you use Convertkit for email marketing. This visitor will
click on the button to find out more about how that helped you.
Don’t sell the product directly, create a content that indicates and shows the useful side,
and makes the visitor fall in love it.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Building Trust with Social Proof

Focus on your memory and try to remember this, You visited a blog or a website that has
the software, ebook or any kind of a product to sell. You were browsing the webpage and
suddenly you see a Small Fomo bar like this –

This popup was telling you that a moment ago, a guy named John, purchased a product
from that website. This Fomo bar was giving you the proof and most importantly, this was
giving a solid reason to buy the product. That is called social proofing.
You can use the WPfomify WordPress plugin to add the same FOMO bars on your blog to
promote your product reviews and increase your revenue as an affiliate. Read the
WPFomify review and learn how to use it.
It can be seen in action at the MonsterInsights blog.
 Beginner's Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Scarcity Marketing Of Affiliate Products

The very effective and high-on-converting promotion type is scarcity marketing. While we
browse through some websites, we come through some promotions that are offered to
us for a limited time.
Sometimes, these websites may show us that a product has limited stocks that would end
soon.
That is how scarcity marketing works. You can also start the promotion of some affiliate
products using scarcity marketing.
A very impressive WordPress plugin is Thrive Ultimatum by thrive themes which works
great for promoting limited offers on WordPress websites. Discover Thrive Ultimatum.
That means without pre-planning, you would miss out on a great number of opportunities
that could prove to be profitable to your business.
If you are just starting out with affiliate marketing, make sure you use the landing pages
and banners from the very beginning. This will at least give you an opportunity to convert
visitors.
I would stick to all of my rules before choosing a product as well as I would suggest you
to start with some selected products at first. keep your focus on one or two products at a
time and escalate your marketing skills as much as possible by continuous learning.
Email marketing should be done efficiently. Even if you’re starting a blog and don’t have
any money to spend, you can still use MailChimp to collect your visitor’s email. This will
help you to create a long list of potential customers in a short time.
What affiliate marketing strategies are you going to use to increase your sales?