Do you have any affiliate marketing questions? Affiliate marketing is an online business model which is growing in popularity. More people are realising that it offers a means to earn an independent income from anywhere! All you need is a laptop and internet connection! But how hard is it? What’s the best way to start and can anyone become successful? These are some of the most common questions asked about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Questions – What Is Affiliate Marketing?
What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is an online referral based business model. The affiliate is basically a third party referrer who is paid a commission for successfully referring sales of other people’s products online. Affiliate marketing is a performance based business model. That means it has no limit cap but also that there’s no guarantee of any income at all! No sales equals no income!
See also what is affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Questions – How Easy Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing definitely isn’t easy. Many affiliates join a program to get started and are disappointed by their results after only a short time period. The top affiliates have mostly been doing it for some time and many affiliates drop out after struggling for only a few months. The affiliate marketing failure rate is around 95%, but of course this includes the many who quit.
There’s many different ways to do affiliate marketing so not everyone’s experience of the business is the same.
See also how difficult is affiliate marketing.
What’s The Best Niche To Pick?
Affiliates will often have a specific topic that they specialise in. This is also referred to as a “niche”. This website, for example covers the niche of affiliate marketing and online business. The most profitable niches are generally considered to be those which offer income all year round, or “evergreen” niches. Top evergreen niches can be hard to get into because of the level of competing content for that particular topic. Here’s some of the top niches:
- Making money online/Wealth generation
- Health and fitness
- Dating and relationships
- Pets
- Hobbies
- Technology
The “best” niche isn’t necessarily in these highly competitive topics though. Many affiliates will choose a topic close the their hearts which is much less competitive. This gives them more opportunity to attract an audience because there’s lower levels of competition. See Best niche for affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Questions – Can Anyone Do Affiliate Marketing?
Can anyone do affiliate marketing? Yes, as long as you can use a computer pretty much anyone can do affiliate marketing. Affiliates do all kinds of different activities to promote affiliate products. Here’s a few of the things affiliates do:
- Blogging
- Video marketing – YouTube/TikTok
- Email marketing
- Link building
- Social media marketing – paid and unpaid
- Connecting to people online
- Ebook creation
- Content creation
A lot of the technical aspects of building an online business using affiliate marketing has put people off. However, new technology and software has meant that there’s far less technical skills needed today for affiliate marketing.
See also what does an affiliate marketer do?
How Long Does Affiliate Marketing Take?
Most new affiliates would like to know how long it takes to generate an income from affiliate marketing. Unfortunately there’s no definite answer to this question because it depends on so many factors. The marketing strategy the affiliate uses is one of the biggest factors which will determine the timescale of someone’s success. A slow marketing strategy for example is blogging. It can take several months or even years to generate traction through blogging alone. Conversely if you use paid marketing and build an email list, you can start seeing more regular sales within a much shorter timescale.
On the whole, the more money you can invest the faster you can build an affiliate business. You can invest in a high ticket business model and paid marketing. Without investment, affiliate marketing will be much slower. Additionally the use of subscription products can make a huge difference when you’re attempting to build a consistent income through affiliate marketing.
See also how long does it take to make money with affiliate marketing?
How Much Money Can You Make As An Affiliate?
There’s no cap on earnings for affiliates, so earnings can be unlimited. Some affiliates earn into the six, seven and even eight figure brackets. This is uncommon however and although there are top earning affiliate millionaires, this isn’t the case for beginners. Since affiliate marketing is performance based, everyone starts at zero. There’s a spread of earnings for affiliates which seems to increase the longer someone has been an affiliate for.
The highest earning affiliate marketers have figured out how to leverage their online presence someone and scale up to reach huge numbers of people. Most affiliates will quit within a few months because they get little traction. See also is affiliate marketing really profitable.
You can make any amount from affiliate marketing but initially it’s important to aim to make a single online sale. Once you figure this out, you can repeat it and multiply your success. But this can take months or years which explains why so many quit. How much does the average affiliate marketer make? It’s around $40k according to the 2016 Affstat affiliate marketing report.
Is Blogging Worth It?
Blogging is a slow strategy often used by affiliate marketers to generate website traffic. Over several months, depending on the content, a blogger can start attracting the attention of the SERPs. The Search Engine Results Page’s are shown by Google and other search engines and gives content creators the ability to get free traffic, if they make onto the first page.
Not everyone can get on the first page of the results page though of course because there’s so many other competing pages! But if you’re consistent and persistent in creating content, and sharing it, blogging can work wonders. If you’re successful as a blogger, you can monetise your site with affiliate products.
Free traffic and a well monetised site means you’re not spending money on advertising. When and if you start making sales, your income is all profit! But not everyone who starts out blogging actually makes it pay. Consider the competition in your niche before making a decision because it will likely take longer than you think! See also is blogging worth it.
Do You Need A Website For Affiliate Marketing?
Here’s another common question: do you need a website to become an affiliate marketer? While you don’t technically need a website to do affiliate marketing, it’s a good idea. Without a website you can promote your affiliate link in many ways:
- Through an email list
- Using landing pages to collect email addresses
- Through your email signature
- Through social media platforms
A website does offer a cheap way to get your products in front of potential buyers. Without one you’re limiting yourself. Many successful affiliates don’t concentrate on blogging on a website though, and instead opt for using paid marketing and build an email list. See also how to promote affiliate links without a website.