- how affiliate tags work,
- how much money can you earn from affiliate marketing,
- how long will it take you to earn a "significant" amount, and
- what marketing channels can you use to earn from affiliate marketing.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
Affiliate marketing is a passive business.
Meaning, you can earn even while you're sleeping. Yesterday, for instance, I was able to "sell" $475-worth of Amazon gift card which I received a $24-commission for.
I don't promote gift cards. So how did this happen?
If you get approved by Amazon (or any program for that matter), a unique tag is given to you. This tag is an alpha-numerical code that you MUST insert in the URLs of products you're interested in promoting.
For instance, let's say you're assigned a tag that goes like this: ptop-20. Now, if you are interested in promoting a vacuum cleaner at Amazon, you need to insert "ptop-70" after the URL of the product.
The final URL goes something like this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B00AZBIZTW?tag=ptop-20.
When someone clicks on the link above and purchases the vacuum cleaner, the tag tells Amazon that the commission is yours. Even if the user veers away from the vacuum cleaner and chooses another product, the sale will still be recorded as yours.
This is true as long as the purchase is done within the "cookie period." This period is the allowable span of time to get paid for a referral you make, and it starts the moment a user clicks on your tag.
At Amazon, the cookie or affiliate period is 24 hours. Others can be as long as 30 days or even 60 days.
Take note that all this action is not possible if your unique tag is not there. You won't see anything on your earnings report.
This principle is the same in all affiliate programs, from Clickbank to Viglink.
How Much Money Can you Earn from Affiliate Marketing?
The answer is "infinite."
As long as there are affiliate products to promote, and as long as users are clicking on your tag and buying your affiliate product, you'll continue to earn from affiliate marketing.
How Long Will it Take you to Earn a "Significant" Amount?
Some would take at least 3 months, while others say they took them 6 months before they finally see "significant earnings."
Note that the meaning of "significant earnings" varies from one person to another. This can be $100 every month, or $500 every month.
Why does it take for some to earn in a shorter time, and others in a longer period of time?
The answer lies in the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.
For instance, if you would like to rely on Google to drive traffic to your website, your website's pages must be on top of Google's search engine results pages. To do this, you need to learn SEO (or search engine optimization). Some factors that dictate your Google rankings include quality of your content, the competition, and the age of your domain name.
NOTE on SEO:
Although SEO can be difficult to master, it's one of the most effective strategies when it comes to attracting "buying customers" to your website. Millions of people go to Google everyday for information. If they want to shop for a particular product, they'd go and research using Google.
If you want to learn SEO, learn it properly so as not to waste your time. Here's a membership site where you can gain access to different types of training materials on SEO.
Marketing Channels to Use in Affiliate Marketing
You'll need to create a website. This website can be called an "affiliate site" or a "niche site" because they promote affiliate products or they fall within a specific topic called a "niche."
I want to promote dishwashers, for instance, so I created a site from Blogger called Best Rated Dishwashers. In this website, I provide people with best-rated dishwashers and dishwasher reviews.
If you have an existing blog, you can use your readership to promote a product and get paid for it. If you are a mommy blogger, you can create your own list of baby crib products that you would recommend. Of course, don't forget to put in your tag.
You can also use videos if you don't like writing. Many affiliate marketers create review videos of products they own at home and then drop their affiliate links in the description.
Or you can use social networking sites, e-commerce social sites (such as Keep), or web 2.0 sites such as Squidoo and Wizzley.
Continue reading...
- What is Affiliate Marketing?
- How to Earn from Affiliate Marketing
- How to Become an Affiliate