Today’s post will be a little different than usual: it is not in fact a tutorial. Rather, we will talk about how to make money online with affiliations.
Affiliate Marketing is considered a Win – Win solution that allows you to benefit the owner of a product / service who wants to promote and advertise it and the affiliate who by registering can earn a commission for each registration or sale generated.
What is an affiliate program?
The term “affiliate program” refers to a commercial agreement between the owner of a website or a company (in jargon merchant ) and a person who promotes the product or service (in jargon publisher ).
Thanks to an affiliate program, companies can recruit people interested in promoting products and services in exchange for a commission on registrations or sales generated, hence performance marketing .
In fact, the company will pay the affiliate only when the set result is achieved, which can be:
- Lead (Registration)
- Download
- Salt (Purchase)
Let’s see now how to make money online with affiliations
The affiliations are one of the strategies passive income favorite by marketers .
In fact, they allow you to earn often generous commissions (up to 70% of the amount paid by the customer in the case of digital products), with relatively little work.
Indeed, if the recommended products are of quality and the affiliate links inserted in a valid context (that is, within a blog or a site where the user finds really useful information) allow you to earn even while you sleep.
This does not mean however that make money online with affiliations be simple, indeed. Among the various ways to make money online, it is one of the slowest to get going, even if it is one of the easiest to implement.
In fact, you will have to:
- be able to generate a good volume of traffic. Probably, only a small percentage of visits to your site will result in real conversions;
- provide useful and comprehensive information to your readers, so as to be credible;
- finally, being able to select products / services to promote that are similar to the interests of your readers and that have a fair price.
As you can see, there are several variables at play. To find some interesting ideas, let’s analyze the salient points of the Add Stat report. We will find out who the “typical affiliate” is, how they promote their site, how much they earn, and more.
A quick presentation of the “typical affiliate”
I state that the Aff Stat report summarizes the responses of the affiliates of 21 countries who responded to the survey. Therefore, this is still a small number compared to those who use this earning strategy globally. I believe that reading this data is important for those who aspire to make money online with affiliations, if only because they reflect current trends.
- The percentage of male affiliates is higher than that of women (54.23% against 42.97%). The difference has been significantly reduced compared to 2014, when there was talk of a gap of over 30 percentage points.
- Most affiliates are between 25 and 44 years old (specifically, 27.558% between 25 and 34, 31.86% between 35 and 44)
- Affiliates between the ages of 45 and 54 also increased, representing 22.41% of respondents in 2016.
How to attract traffic to the site
As I already mentioned in the introduction, having a good volume of traffic is always important for generating sales and, therefore, commissions.
There are several ways to attract users to the site, let’s see those favored by the affiliates who participated in the study:
- I69.22% SEO – that is, search engine optimization and organic traffic. This is a very high percentage from which we understand how important positioning on Google is.
- 67.32% Social Networks – It is now known that, to have a valid online presence, it is essential to be present on the social networks used by our potential users. The weight of social media has grown compared to 2014, surpassing blogging in importance. Both your shares and those of those who read your blog are effectively free advertising.
- 64.48% Blogging – Blogging takes time, but it can transform users from casual visitors to loyal readers. Writing regularly helps to increase your credibility and, if the posts are optimized, also to greatly improve the ranking of your site on Google. Not surprisingly, more than half of the affiliates who participated in the study have a blog.
These three main strategies are followed by Email Marketing (41.47%), Pay-per-Click, that is, Adsense advertising & co. (34.28%), word of mouth (22.16%) and others.
Content marketing and comment marketing
It is interesting to note how content marketing is taking over as regards online promotion strategies: the focus is on informative content, optimized for search engines and shared on social networks and via newsletters.
The comment marketing attracts only 3.17% of the traffic. This is an activity practiced by less business than a few years ago. There is less talk about it, but it represents an interesting opportunity, precisely because fewer people do it.
What do affiliates promote who make really good money online?
Another interesting aspect.
By now, most of the companies that sell online also offer a affiliate program.
However, it is important not to be tempted by all the earning possibilities. Rather, select what you promote carefully. Too much advertising usually annoys users.
First of all, it is important to note that as many as 59.32% of the affiliates interviewed promote B2C products, that is, physical products aimed at consumers (22.08% instead promote services, always B2C); this is a growing category compared to two years ago.
Fewer is the number of affiliates who instead promote products and / or services aimed at companies, which represent 18.6% of the total.
If you wish make money online with affiliations, remember that the 5 most promoted product categories are:
- computers and electronics: 41.04%;
- clothing: 39.84%;
- online services: 29.88%;
- accessories: 29.48%;
- beauty products: 27.89%.
The predominant factor in choosing the product or service to promote is the relevance to its website and the interests of users (18.15% of interested parties chose this answer).
Followed by the reputation of the affiliate program (15.97%) and the measurement platform and the affiliate network (11.58%).
The latter aspect is very interesting. Affiliates want to participate in initiatives that are credible, with a good reputation, and which are likely not to cause problems for them or users. However, they are looking for a platform on which they can measure results and have a reliable infrastructure.
They also want to learn how to improve: when the affiliate relationship is not granted, they contact the program manager to understand the reasons for the rejection and how to resolve the problem.
Quality prevails over quantity
42.17% of study participants participate in 1-10 affiliate programs . The percentage drops as the number of affiliate relationships increases . Let’s go back to the point above: if you wish make money online with affiliations, prefer quality programs, products and services rather than quantity.
Also keep in mind that having so many plans doesn’t allow you to focus your efforts and can become difficult to manage.
Don’t underestimate affiliate support
As I’ve already mentioned, implementing an affiliate marketing strategy can be more complex than it sounds. It is not enough to add a banner to the page and forget about it… that is the final goal!
In this context, the support of those who offer the affiliate program is very important:
- as many as 49.58% of respondents said that the support of an affiliate manager (the person who runs the affiliate program ) is important.
- 32.26% said it was crucial to their business.
The lessons to be learned from this data are:
- if you are an affiliate, get in touch with your affiliate manager and ask for advice on how to improve your campaigns. Probably, you will receive useful tips.
- if you offer an affiliate program , be sure to offer support to your affiliates and keep in touch via email.
All these efforts… but how much can you earn online with affiliations?
Profits vary widely, but as many as 9.55% of study participants earn more than $ 100,000. Of these, 3.16% more than 150 thousand. Obviously, this is not the norm (48.36% earn less than $ 20,000), but it is certainly a good indication of the potential of this strategy.
Conclusion
We have come to the end of this guide on how make money online with affiliations.
Did you find it interesting?
Do you already use affiliations ?
Or is it a strategy you are considering?
