The affiliate marketing industry is a billion-dollar market, and it’s never too late to delve into an affiliate program. If you’re looking for a side hustle that can garner more cash than just a few hundred dollars, an affiliate marketing side hustle is the one you need. We will guide you through the basics of everything in this industry for side hustle affiliate marketing and get started on making a considerable income on the side.
What is affiliate marketing, and who is an affiliate marketer?
The relationship between a company and an individual based on the marketing or promotion of its products is known as affiliate marketing.
An affiliate marketer is a person who promotes and makes sales for the company.
Affiliate marketing is a symbiotic relationship between two parties. The company benefits from the promotion and sales made by the marketer, and in return, the person receives a percentage of the sale profit in commission.
How side hustle affiliate marketing works
Companies give each affiliate marketer a unique affiliate link that helps the merchant company keep track of which sale was made by which affiliate. When buyers click on the affiliate link, the data gets stored as a cookie, and the decided commission is paid out once the purchase completes.
Affiliate links make it easier for the marketer and the company to attribute each sale correctly.
How much can you make as an affiliate marketer
One of the best features of affiliate marketing is that the marketer is not bound to promote just one company’s products. There is no limit to the number of companies one can choose to market, and therefore, the scope of their income is limitless.
How much you make as an affiliate marketer is entirely dependent upon the amount of work you put into it and how effectively you can sway your audience. An affiliate marketer is different from a regular salesperson in the way that the former has complete control over their work and income generation.
A well-established affiliate marketer can make an annual income well in the hundred-thousand range. If you’re starting in this industry, remember to manage your expectations. Every successful affiliate has put in hard work and time to reap a substantial profit, and so would you. There’s no doubt that the wait and work you put in would be paid back exponentially.
Getting started as an affiliate marketer
When starting as an affiliate marketer, there are certain steps required to establish yourself on a reputed platform. Here’s a little guide to help you through the process:
- Choose a platform
There is no shortage of online platform where one could set up their affiliate links. The most famous affiliate marketing platforms are blogging and YouTube. As compared to other platforms, it is easier to build an audience through blogging and uploading YouTube videos.
Instagram is also a popular destination for affiliate marketers. Any platform that gets substantial consumer traffic would make an ideal marketing platform.
- Optimize for SEO
Any person who has the slightest of ideas about how blogging or other social platforms work knows the importance of SEO. Wherever the affiliate link is posted, whether on a blog or to a YouTube video, optimizing for SEO is a surefire way of generating more views. SEO brings in a larger audience, increasing the chance of getting more affiliate link clicks and sales. If you’ve set up a website for affiliate marketing, we cannot stress the importance of SEO optimization enough to rank higher on the search engine.
- Decide on an area of interest
Having a particular niche for affiliate marketing can prove to be very fruitful. Especially for newbie bloggers, it is important to choose a specific niche to rack up organic visits. In addition to gaining a regular audience, it also keeps your content from seeming too vague. When you start as an amateur, it is imprudent to write on various topics from different niches because of the risk of driving away traffic.
Having a narrow niche will first generate a loyal audience, and it can later be expanded to include other categories.
- Join an affiliate program
Several companies host affiliate programs, and you can choose one depending on your area of interest. In accordance with your content, there will be the option of choosing a high-pay and low-volume program. This type of program is well-suited to blogs that have business-oriented content and an audience. The commission is higher, but so is the competition.
A low-pay and high-volume program is suited to marketers targeting regular consumers. Though the commission rates per sale usually rank in the single digits, their high volume of products makes up for the low pay.
The affiliate programs of your choice will depend on your area of interest and level of expertise.
- Deliver quality
Randomly sprinkling your affiliate links over a content piece will not lead to sales. Successful affiliate marketers don’t just promote products; they also deliver quality content that makes their audience want to buy that product.
This is where choosing a niche comes into play. If you create content on an area you’re interested in, it will reflect on your blog and generate sales. Writing or making a video on something of your interest will be effortless, and what’s better is that you will make money out of it.
- Invite traffic, generate clicks and make sales
SEO is just one way of bringing traffic to your platform. You can also delve into email marketing or paid ads to bring traffic in the beginning.
The placement of every link must be smart. Make sure you tell the prospective customer enough about the product before they click on its link.
To wrap it up, affiliate marketing is a billion-dollar industry, and rightly so. If a marketer makes the best use of a platform’s features, there’s no doubt they’ll make plenty of money through this side hustle affiliate marketing.