Are you wondering how to make money selling other people’s products? A clever business model known as affiliate marketing lets you do exactly that.
- Join an affiliate program
- Get a unique affiliate link which directs people to the product and is “coded” to you.
- Learn how to generate sales with that link.
- Collect your commission on sales you generate.
Anyone can join an affiliate program, although some programs require you to have an up and running website or some kind of online following. But the vast majority of affiliate programs don’t require anything other than you to create a profile. Amazon is one of the most popular affiliate programs and anyone can earn commissions by referring customers to products on the site.
There’s a heap of other affiliate programs too covering all kinds of products and services on the internet.
How To Make Money Selling Other People’s Products – Product Promotion
The trickiest part of making money selling affiliate products by far is promotion. Some affiliates are bloggers, and promote affiliate links through their articles. Others will use paid advertising and build an email list of subscribers, promoting affiliate products to their list. There’s no “one size fits all” strategy with affiliate marketing although the top affiliates generally all have an email list, so it’s important to get one. (See free autoresponder for affiliate marketing). You can also promote affiliate products using:
- SEO – search engine optimisation
- Link building – to increase web ranking on the search engines (e.g. Google)
- Social media marketing – both paid and free strategies can be used
- Video marketing – using TikTok or YouTube for example
- Ebook creation – ebooks can be used as lead magnets to help encourage website visitors to join an email list or sold directly from a website
See also 22 ways to promote affiliate products.
How To Make Money Selling Other People’s Products – Choosing An Affiliate Product To Promote
You can choose any product you can find on the internet providing it has an affiliate program attached to it. Many products you find online will allow you to promote it through your affiliate link and earn commissions. However not all affiliate products pay an equal amount in commissions.
Physical products for example tend to pay less in commissions than digital products. Amazon’s commission structure goes from paying just 1% commission to around 11%. Digital products such as training courses and digital downloads tend to pay from 20%-40% commissions.
Subscription affiliate programs/products are a good idea for affiliates to promote because they offer ongoing commissions on each sale. So a single sale can bring in commissions for months or even years. High ticket products are those priced at a higher value than most online products and services. They typically will sell for over $500 and so you can earn a lot more on their sale. Ideally use a high ticket business model which offers a product range which includes high ticket and recurring income products for the best return on your investment.
List Building
List building is the preferred way to sell affiliate products online for a couple of reasons. Whether you pay for advertising to get people to your products, or whether you’re a content creator (like a blogger), you’ll need people to purchase your products to make money.
To get people in front of your affiliate products either takes time (in terms of generating content) or money (with paid advertising).
By sending website traffic to a landing page and collecting emails you get much more control over that traffic. With a website, a visitor only sticks around for a few minutes and then they are gone forever. With an advert, sending someone directly to an affiliate product, the same applies.
But on an email list you can continue to build a relationship with your subscribers for weeks, months and even years. Building an email list gives you control over your traffic. See also the power of email marketing. From a list you can continue promoting your affiliate products over a longer duration. Studies show that most people need several “touch points” before they make a purchase online.
Using Paid Advertising Combined With Email Marketing
Combining paid marketing platforms with email marketing creates a powerful way to make money selling other people’s products. Email marketing allows you to extend the “getting to know you” period of building trust and paid marketing allows you to test and measure your advertising quickly.
Although initially there’s some learning with paid marketing, over time and with practice it can give you the best opportunity for selling items en-mass. Compared with other marketing strategies such as blogging and video blogging, for example, it’s much faster and more effective.
However paid marketing is costly and this means it’s far better to use the kinds of affiliate products which pay the most. Digital products which offer multiple payment strategies, software and membership products ( which pay recurring commissions), and high ticket products offer the best opportunity when using paid advertising.
Other free strategies are slow and less scalable. Blogging, for example can take months or years to generate traction, depending on the relative competition in your particular topic/niche.
Get Started
Learn how to make money selling other people’s products. Access an all in one business system and training program which offers:
- A ready made digital sales funnel
- All the software you need
- Push button website builder
- Access to training and coaches
