let me make it real simple:
affiliate marketing is "SOPS" -->Selling Other People's Stuff.
On one hand, you have a merchant and that merchant can sell any type of product. It can be physical goods, digital goods, a membership site or a subscription.
For example; you know Amazon sells books. On Amazon, you can sign up for their affiliate program.
If you have a website, you put the Amazon affiliate link on your site and if a visitor to your site clicks that link and goes to Amazon and buys a book, Amazon will pay you a commission on that purchase. It's that simple...
We are now talking about physical goods. Not only Amazon has its own affiliate program but also other places like Best Buy, Target, JCPenney, Best Buy, etc.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of merchants that have affiliate programs.
And you can earn money by selling their products.
There are also sites that offer digital goods.
One of the best platforms to get and sell your digital products such as ebooks and software is Clickbank.com.
In fact, there are hundreds of products which you could instantly promote with a special link and then get a commission based on every sale.
One of the main reasons affiliate marketing is so popular because the overhead is so low and the commissions are usually very high.
For example, if you promote an ebook on Clickbank which sells for $100, you can earn 50% commission on each sale.
Another version of affiliate marketing is a subscription model.
For example the Wall Street Journal or USA Today.
If you sign up for their affiliate program and a visitor to your website makes that purchase, you then earn a commission. Some membership sites and subscription-based programs actually pay monthly recurring commissions.
So an affiliate program is really just selling other people’s products and if you have a website then you can do this and you can make money online.
If you don't have your own website there are other ways to make affiliate commissions.
More about this in my next blog post.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://bartrusch.com/what-is-affiliate-marketing/