Affiliate marketing

What is affiliate marketing, also known as affiliation marketing?

Affiliate marketing, also known as affiliation marketing, is a digital strategy focused on achieving results. In other words, it’s a strategy in which an affiliate promotes a company’s products or services, and in return, the company pays them a percentage of the profits from each sale.

Affiliation is generally linked to sales (sale = commission for the affiliate), but affiliates can also earn financial compensation for driving qualified traffic to a landing page or generating sign-ups.

How does affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing works like this: suppose the company or brand gives the affiliate a link that identifies who was responsible for the sale, and when someone clicks it, a small file is stored on the device.

Imagine someone visits your post and clicks one of the links that takes them to the product — if they decide to buy it, that’s when the affiliate marketing process is complete.

But… does it really work?

Yes, it does, since the company that created the product will be happy to gain a new customer without having to invest much effort in resources.

On the other hand, the customer will also be satisfied, since the recommendation helped them meet a need, saving them time.

And the affiliate benefits too, earning a commission on the sale — resulting in a win-win for everyone involved.

Parts of affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing involves several key players, each playing a vital role in the affiliation process.

Affiliates or publishers. These are companies or individuals who, through their websites, blogs, social media, or email marketing campaigns, help sell or popularize products or services in exchange for a commission.
Advertisers. These are companies looking to promote their products or services by offering a financial commission to anyone who helps them expand their reach and attract more customers.
Final consumers. They are the people who complete the purchase or goal defined in the affiliate campaign, allowing the affiliate to earn a commission from the advertiser. As a general rule, the consumer doesn’t realize they’re generating a commission for the affiliate or publisher.
Affiliate program. It’s the network that connects advertisers with affiliates. It sets the conditions the affiliate must meet to earn a commission, along with the commitments the advertising company makes to the affiliate.

Principles of affiliate marketing

Knowing the principles of affiliate marketing will help you apply the rest of the techniques that will let you work efficiently:

Relevance. It’s important to recommend products that are relevant to your target audience — otherwise, you won’t sell anything and you’ll lose visitors.
Credibility. It’s generally best to recommend products you’re confident are effective. If you’re not familiar with what you’re working with, it will be hard to add value.
Experience. This also includes the previous point, since trying a product is the best way to make sure it works.
Honesty. When promoting a product, it’s important to speak transparently and be honest at all times, as this will help you earn the trust of those who may decide to buy one of the sponsored products in the future.

Advantages and disadvantages of affiliate marketing

At first glance, affiliate marketing may seem like an easy way to earn sales and commissions without a large investment, but in reality, it’s more complex. We’ll highlight the advantages and disadvantages of affiliate marketing from the perspectives of both the affiliate and the advertiser.

Advantages for affiliates

They don’t need to manage product inventory or handle customer support or after-sales service.
They can join multiple affiliate programs at the same time, even from different advertisers.
Their risk is minimal since they don’t need to hold inventory or make a significant investment.

Disadvantages for affiliates

Creating specialized content is necessary to recommend the product or service, as a banner is usually not enough.
Commissions earned are typically very low.
Recommending a product or service can hurt their credibility with their audience.

Advantages for advertisers

They reach a wider audience by paying only when results are achieved.
There’s no need for a large investment since the commission is only paid when the action is completed.
If the goal is sales, the consumer completes the purchase and becomes your customer, allowing for future sales opportunities.

Disadvantages for advertisers

Affiliates aren’t exclusive and might promote your brand while also recommending your competitors.
They have no control over affiliates, who may switch to another affiliate program with better conditions, without prior notice.
If promoted on inappropriate sites, it can damage their brand image.

What types of affiliate marketing are there?

There are 3 ways to earn money through affiliate marketing, and each one offers a different payout depending on what the company you choose to promote has set:

1. Pay per conversion

In this case, the merchant pays a sales commission per product — that is, once the referred customer completes the purchase process.

2. Pay per click

Here, payment is based on the number of visitors who were redirected to the sponsor’s website and clicked through the created link.

3. Pay per form

You earn a commission if people you’ve referred have completed a form with their details.

How to get started with affiliate marketing as an affiliate?

If you’re aiming to earn income as an affiliate, keep this in mind: to start, you need to arm yourself with patience. Don’t expect to strike it rich with affiliate marketing overnight.

That said, here are 6 simple steps to get started as an affiliate:

1) Create a blog or a social media account

A blog or an Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok account. Whichever suits you best. That said: the simpler the channel, the more profitable it will be. In this sense, blogs and social media are easy to manage. And, on top of that, inexpensive.

It’s best to choose just one channel (at least, to start with). As the saying goes: if you try to do everything, you won’t do anything well.

2) Define a topic and choose your audience

A themed blog, for example. And a specific topic, to narrow down your audience. Avoid overly broad topics (like music). Focus on a specific style. And if that style is too broad, dig deeper until you find a sub-style.

And a sub-style you actually like, of course. Because that’s one of the keys to success (in any business): enjoying what you do.

The audience follows the topic. Choosing your audience also means getting to know it. Knowing what concerns them, what their needs are.

3) Create relevant content (and be consistent)

Relevant content is content that’s useful and interesting to your potential audience. And it’s useful and interesting because it solves a problem, because it helps.

For it to be relevant, you first need to know your audience (we’ll show you an easy way to do that later).

And be consistent. That means creating content regularly and according to a plan, following a schedule.

4) Optimize your content with SEO (and try SEM too)

The purpose of SEO is for your content to rank well in search engines. In other words, so that when your potential audience types certain words (keywords), they find you.

Those keywords represent their problems, their needs. So create content based on those keywords. This is also a way to get to know your audience better.

And if you’re in a hurry and want to invest a bit more, you can create paid ads. That way, traffic will reach you sooner. With SEO, you need to be more patient. Patience that can take months. And sometimes years, depending on the competition and the effort you put in.

5) Look for affiliate programs

Once you’ve built an audience and earned their loyalty, it’s time to look for affiliate programs. These need to be related to your niche.

For example, if you have a blog about mountain biking or advice for parents, look for affiliate programs with companies that offer related products or services (mountain bike accessories or baby products).

Amedia Social is a platform dedicated to social media growth. They offer all kinds of services for networks like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and many others.

Their affiliate program is aimed at all kinds of profiles: marketing beginners or experts, content creators, influencers, online income professionals…

Affiliates can earn up to 20% of every sale generated by promoting Amedia Social’s services or adding an affiliate link to their content.

One of the program’s strong points is that anyone interested can contact a personal advisor to draw up a customized plan and earn passive income every month.

6) Use persuasive techniques to get clicks

How do I get people to click on my affiliate link? Many factors play into this, such as where you place the affiliate link or how you present it (calls to action, for example).

Also, the consistency between the topic and the affiliate link. For example, if you write a positive review about a running accessory, place the affiliate link near the beginning (many readers don’t read all the way to the end).

That said: don’t overdo it. Nothing is less persuasive than making your audience feel like you’re spamming them.

With these 6 simple steps, you’ll have the basics to get started. The rest (success) comes down to hard work, patience, and learning through trial and error.

Affiliate marketing via email

With email, affiliate marketing works differently, because to use it effectively, you first need an audience that has already given you their contact information — something you typically get after a previous sale.

Email marketing lets you reach out to consumers at any time, which helps you keep them informed about new content. They’ll see this as the ideal moment to get in touch with you, resulting in an increase in affiliate sales.

You can even offer promotions, but to get them interested, you need to offer something valuable. All you need is creativity and motivation when carrying out the strategy.

Why should you invest in affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing takes time, but the results it generates are amazing — not just for you, but for the company and the customers who end up satisfied along the way.

The first thing you should know is that sales will depend on the goals you set, though this requires experimenting and building ideas that will eventually allow you to generate income.

It’s also a great way to get started in the world of online marketing, since it will help you work with companies and, as a result, have closer contact with consumers so you can understand their needs.

Examples of affiliate marketing

Nothing beats a few examples to better understand what affiliate marketing involves and its potential for both producing companies and affiliates:

Amazon affiliate marketing

Amazon claims to have the largest affiliate program in the world. Its strategy is very simple (but effective) and consists of building a broad network of affiliates (bloggers, influencers, and major publishers) with links tailored to different channels (blogs, social media, websites).

Affiliates can earn a commission of up to 20% on sales made through the Amazon store. But first, they must fill out an application and achieve at least three sales within 180 days to be accepted.

For influencers, by the way, Amazon has an exclusive affiliate program. Its name says it all: influencers.

Hotmart affiliate marketing

This platform dedicated to distributing digital products offers an appealing program for affiliates. Commission can reach up to 80% of the sale.

Once registered, affiliates must choose which Hotmart product to promote (they can choose several). And since the products sold on Hotmart are digital, it’s the product’s digital creator who decides whether to accept the affiliate’s request.

Once accepted, the affiliate receives a link to promote it on social media, blogs, or email.

Affiliate marketing on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok

Social media has become fertile ground for practicing affiliate marketing. First, because it’s a place many consumers use to learn about products and services.

Second, because it’s where many affiliates — especially influencers — can reach a broad, loyal audience to promote a third party’s products or services.

That said, you don’t need to be an influencer to make the most of social media as an affiliate. But you do need a solid audience with relevant, interesting content.

Instagram, for example, is an ideal network, since its content formats (images, videos, and live streams) give consumers a complete experience for learning about products and services.

Pinterest is a network built around a more limited format (images), so it works best for products where the image carries a lot of weight (fashion, decor, beauty, health). For it to work better, you might need a blog to expand on the information for your audience.

YouTube has the advantage of its format, video, one of the most powerful for commercial purposes. Its storytelling potential makes it great for reviews, tutorials, roundup videos, or showcasing trends.

TikTok, finally, is a younger network, where the type of audience (more than half are teens and twenty-somethings) determines the type of product or service. Its format — short videos — demands a lot of creativity to know how to properly promote a service or product to your audience.

In conclusion: the future of affiliate marketing

Since it first appeared, affiliate marketing has always been in good health. Its low cost and high profitability make it a safe bet. With, at least, (practically) zero risk.

Social media, influencers, and new formats like live shopping ensure it has a promising future. Both for producing companies looking to expand their audience and for affiliates looking to turn this type of marketing into a profitable business model.

Feel like trying affiliate marketing? Then discover the full potential of email marketing as a technique to increase your conversions as a producing company and to attract more of an audience as an affiliate.