Welcome to this post “Affiliate Marketing For Beginners 2024”. Affiliate marketing isn’t new but it’s constantly evolving. With Google updates, regulation updates (GDPR), disclaimer notices, cookie policies and so on to consider. More than ever you need advice and help for the checks and balances needed to be an affiliate.
Anyone can become an affiliate marketer too, but it’s becoming more necessary to prove your “worth” to some affiliate companies; some of whom require you to have your own website and a large email list before joining their programs. There’s no guarantees with affiliate marketing and as a performance related business, you only get paid when you make those sales. Since it’s pretty easy to become an affiliate and there’s a very low barrier to entry, this means there’s lots of people jumping on the band wagon. This means there’s a tonne of competition.
This might explain the 95% of affiliates who quit. See also why most affiliates fail. So this post is to give you a heads up on some of the lessons I have learned in my 10+ years as an affiliate and some of the most important pieces of advice I can give.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners 2024 – Methods
There’s a number of affiliate marketing strategies you can use to make sales online. Some are better than others and some are cheaper than others! Depending on your strategy it can take several months or even years to make regular income from affiliate marketing. Some start making headway within a few weeks, but it’s not uncommon to struggle at first with affiliate marketing. That’s why it’s a good idea to join a community and get help and support. You can do that here.
Here’s some of the basic methods which affiliates use to sell affiliate products online:
- Blogging – I’m a blogger and you’ll find over 700 posts on this website alone. Plus I’ve got several other websites too!
- Video marketing – YouTube or TikTok are examples of free platforms you can upload your video content to. You can also pay to advertise too.
- SEO – Search Engine Optimisation is a popular method for selling affiliate products online. Website owners use SEO to get their websites found through Google and other search engines
- Social media platforms – Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter (Now X!), Instagram and so on all offer opportunities to find customers for affiliate products, using either free or paid for marketing strategies.
- Email marketing is one of the best strategies for selling online. So whatever other method you use you should definitely use email marketing.
- PPC – Pay Per Click marketing is one of the fastest and most scalable strategies you could use as an affiliate.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners 2024 – Types Of Product
There’s thousands of different affiliate products you can choose to sell online which pay you commissions for the referral. The product/s you choose will have a bearing on your success levels as an affiliate marketer.
As an example, Amazon has one of the most popular affiliate programs you can use. Amazon’s rates though aren’t the best. they pay between 1% to 20% commission on any products you can sell.
Digital products are another option. With digital products you stand to earn more per sale with the usual commission structure of 30%-40% for digital items. because there’s no delivery costs, and manufacturing costs are much lower, the savings are passed to affiliates!
Then there’s high ticket affiliate programs and subscription affiliate products which pay out recurring commissions. A sale of a high ticket item can make you a much larger commission than your average affiliate item can. So these are definitely worth considering.
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners – Why Build An Email List
I was an affiliate some time before I learned the importance of building an email list. Let me help you here – get an email autoresponder for free!
An email list gives you control. Without one, you’re going to have to rely on getting your traffic (visitors) from either paid sources (which is expensive) or for free (which is tough). But once you start building an email list, (and providing value to your subscribers), you can compound your efforts much more easily.
Long term affiliates build email lists into the tens and even hundreds of thousands of subscribers. They can send out a single email to all of their subscribers at once. If only a small percentage of their list buys something, it can be a massive pay day! If you sell high ticket and/or subscription products so much the better!
See also why build an email list.
Cheap Marketing Methods For Affiliates
Whatever you decide to do on your affiliate journey, it’s worth knowing a few home truths. Many will tell you how “easy” it can be making money online. Let me tell you it isn’t! How else can you explain the huge drop out rate among affiliate marketers (95%)?
There’s costly methods and cheaper methods of course. The more expensive methods are faster and less difficult. Buy a high ticket sales funnel which pays out the largest commissions. Use paid marketing and scale up to a global audience. However, this strategy doesn’t suit everyone. There’s more investment involved in this kind of strategy.
Alternatively you can go the route of the content creator. Build content such as with blogging or video and over time more people will find you organically through the search engines. As someone who has gone this route, let me say it’s a long path. Especially now in 2024 due to the super high competition online it can take months before you can reap the fruits of your labours. So it’s worth picking a topic you’re passionate about if you intent to become a blogger/video blogger (v’logger).
Why Use High Ticket Items
Most affiliate products might sell at around the $50-$100 mark. So if you consider a 5% commission on these (physical items) you’ll earn $2.50-$5 per sale. This means you’ll need a lot of sales to make a good living from it. Use digital products and your commission rate will jump up by 30% in some cases. With subscription items which pay out recurring commissions you’re going to get more per sale. When the same work is required for much of whatever you do as an affiliate, it pays to heed this advice early!
When you consider that a high ticket product might pay you $1000 per sale, you can see that even with fewer sales you can earn a lot more. Remember that whatever you believe about people’s spending habits, and the cost of living etc., with an internet based business you can sell to anyone globally. So why target low paying items with your affiliate efforts when you can sell to people who are spending huge amounts?
For more on this topic see high ticket affiliate products. For the best “bang for your buck” combine high ticket, digital and subscription affiliate products. Use a digital business model to go this route. More on this here.