What is Affiliate Marketing and How Does it Work

You must have seen ads like- ‘Make money when you sleep!’ – That is how most of us are introduced to What is Affiliate Marketing and you should be well aware of how to do affiliate marketing.

According to AM Navigator, 40% of marketing professionals quote affiliate marketing as the most desired digital skill.

We, at Digital Vidya thought to come up with this article to let you understand what is Affiliate Marketing, how to do affiliate marketing and how it works in the most comprehensive manner so you can understand how one can be either an Affiliate Marketer or an Affiliate Marketing Merchant by using different channels of Affiliate Marketing Business.

Affiliate Marketing is considered as one of the most ideal approaches to appreciate automated revenues i.e. passive income, which is further based on revenue sharing and this reason is enough for you to know how to do affiliate marketing.

Amazon Affiliate Marketing is specifically a good way to make more money and add substantial extra income.

In the event that you have an item/product/service and need to sell it more, you can offer publishers/promoters/advertisers and incentie via an affiliate program–> Affiliate Marketing Merchant.

On the off chance that you have no any product/item/service and need to enjoy passive income, then you may advertise an item that you think has esteem and can aid you to make money as an affiliate marketer. The thought behind this is that you advance, promote and advertise other individuals’ products or services, regularly through an associate/affiliate system, gaining a commission if individuals really wind up purchasing because of your marketing skills–> Affiliate Marketer.

Different Indian companies offer Affiliate Programs in India as well that aid you earn referral fees.

Kunal Bahl, co-founder of Snapdeal says about Snapdeal Affiliate program-

“Snapdeal Affiliate Hub is a referral program where you can earn referral fees by advertising products sold on Snapdeal and referring your users to us. You will earn a referral fee each time a user visits us through your affiliate referral link and makes a purchase.”

Let us first understand what is Affiliate Marketing, then we’ll go in details and see how you can either be a Successful Affiliate Marketer or a trusted Affiliate Marketing Merchant and learn how to do affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

According to Pat Flynn (American entrepreneur, blogger and podcaster known for his website Smart Passive Income):–

          “Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.”

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Now that we know ‘What is Affiliate Marketing’, let’s understand how does affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing can be viewed as a system that spreads product creation and marketing crosswise different parties where each party shares the revenue as per their contribution, and that is why an Affiliate Equation has two sides:

1. The product creator and seller (Affiliate Marketing Merchant)
2. The affiliate marketer

However, according to most of the “How Affiliate Marketing Works Guides”, an Affiliate Marketing System includes three parts to channelize the marketing framework-

Advertiser, Publisher & Consumer

However, Affiliate Network is another important part of Affiliate Business, and that’s why we’ll go through the 4 parts of Affiliate Marketing in this ‘What is affiliate marketing and how does it work Guide’-

4 Parts Of Affiliate Marketing

(I) The Merchant

(i) Also known as the maker, the company, the retailer, the creator, or the brand

(ii) Affiliate Marketing Merchant creates an item/product or service. It can be a major organization like OMG Network.

(ii) Alternatively, it can be an individual who is an entrepreneur and pitches online courses and consulting programs on digital marketing career.

(iv) Anyone who has a product to sell can be a merchant behind an Affiliate Marketing Program.

(II) The Affiliate

(i) Affiliates are also known as the publishers, distributors or advertisers. They can likewise go from a single individual to whole organizations.

(ii) Affiliate marketer advertises one or more affiliate products, items or services and tries to draw in and persuade potential clients that suit vendor’s product so that they really wind up purchasing it.

(iii) This can be accomplished by running a survey or review blog of the Affiliate Marketing Merchant’s items. For instance:

(iv) The affiliate could likewise be a site, which is committed to discovering cool items around a specific theme, and then to advertising those affiliate items for target audiences.

(III) The Consumer

(i) The consumers let the affiliate framework go round and offer the results. Without successful deals, there aren’t any commissions to distribute and no income to be shared.

(ii) The affiliate marketer will attempt to market to the consumers on whatever channel they see befitting for their consumers, regardless of whether that is a social network, search engine, digital billboard or content marketing channels.

(iii) Consumers will know that they are the part of an affiliate network system, only if the affiliate wants them to know this. Some let their customers know as they have a tendency to be straightforward about their marketing being boosted fiscally, yet others don’t.

(iv) They have a tracking framework that works at the back-end, where consumers can take after the buying procedure in a usual fashion, and in the end, affiliates will earn good commission.

(v) The consumers won’t normally pay a higher cost to the affiliate advertiser, as the cost of the affiliate system is incorporated into the retail cost.

(IV) The Network

(i) There are very few who consider the network as the Affiliate Marketing framework. In any case, I trust that an Affiliate Marketing guide needs to incorporate networks, on the grounds that, by and large, a network fills in as a delegate between the affiliate network and the affiliate marketing merchant.

(ii) With affiliate network, you could, in fact, advertise an online course somebody has made and simply manage an immediate income-share with them, letting networks like ClickBank or Commission Junction handle the instalment and product delivery that puts a more genuine approach in Affiliate Marketing programs.

(iii) Occasionally, affiliates need to go through an affiliate network to try and have the capacity to promote the product efficiently.

(iv) The network then additionally fills in as a database of lots of products, and out of those products, affiliates can pick the one (or more than one) they want to promote.

(v) To promote different kinds of consumer products such as tools, toys, books, and household items, Amazon is by far one of the biggest affiliate networks. With the help of Amazon Associates’ affiliate program, you can promote any product, which is available to be sold on their platform.

(vi) You may sign up and generate a custom affiliate link to Amazon products quite easily and then, in case of anyone purchases through your affiliate link, you will be able to earn a commission.

With the fundamental terms cleared up, now the time has come to delve into steps need to begin with building your Affiliate Marketing business and learn how to do affiliate marketing.

How To Do Affiliate Marketing

To build your Affiliate Marketing Business, you have two options-

1. Become an Affiliate Marketing Merchant

2. Become an Affiliate Marketer

Let us separately understand the steps involved in becoming either a Merchant or a Marketer in Affiliate Marketing Business-

How To Become An Affiliate Marketing Merchant?

On the off chance that you want to become an Affiliate Marketing Merchant, learn how to do affiliate marketing and after that wish to make a profit by having affiliates offer your products, you need to follow below given four steps-

(i) In the first place, you need to have a product idea. To generate those ideas, you need to look at what products and services are already out in the market, how you can improve upon them or think for something that can solve the problems associated with those products.

(ii) Second, you need to validate or approve of your product idea. You could simply go ahead and fabricate your thought. Nevertheless, imagine a scenario where individuals do not need it -A thought is just great if individuals really need it to spring up.

(iii) Third, you need to really create that product as per your product idea. To start in this province, it’d beneficial to start with digital products as creating physical products may need huge investments and risks. Since digital products just require your time and next to zero cash, they would be better in ensuring good ROI.

(iv) Now in the fourth and final step, you have to find associates to advertise your product, and affiliate network will help you in this.

4 Steps To Be An Affiliate Marketer

To become an affiliate marketer, and learn how to do affiliate marketing, below-given are the 4 steps that you need to follow-

(i) To begin with, you have to begin checking and reviewing products in your speciality. That can be quite easily possible on a YouTube channel, using live streams on Periscope or by using blogs.

(ii) Second, you need to collect messages or emails, so you can interface with your target audiences whenever you need, as you should never hope audiences to see your content.

(iii) In the next step, you can utilize joint online courses or webinars to make a ton of offers in a brief time-frame, while at the same time develop your email list and make new substance/content.

(iv) In the last step, when your affiliate marketing business begins profiting, you can scale your development with pay per click advertising methods.

Conclusion

With effective Affiliate Marketing, you can discover an item you like, advertise it to others, and procure a bit of the profit for every deal that you convert.

You’re glad since you enjoyed a commission, and your Affiliate Marketing Merchant would be cheerful in light of the fact that they have another deal from a client that they won’t be able to reach via normal procedures of marketing.

Following aforestated steps will help you understand what is affiliate marketing & how does affiliate marketing work for your advantage & how to do affiliate marketing.

You can choose to be, either an Affiliate Marketing Merchant or an Affiliate Marketer, as per your expertise and specific requirements.

In case, you wish to know more about what is affiliate marketing, how Affiliate Marketing works or how to do affiliate marketing,  feel free to ask me in comments.

If you are also inspired by the opportunities provided by Affiliate Marketing, have a look at our Affiliating Marketing Guide and join our Digital Marketing Course to embark your journey as an Affiliate Marketer.