If your reading this article on Affiliate Marketing, there's a good chance that you want to make a little bit more money. You work a nine to five job and you might be skeptical and think that everybody who ever tells you how to make money on the internet is running a scam or trying to sell you something. Hopefully, this article can change your mind about that because I'm going to tell you what to do on the internet to make thousands of dollars a month.

For those of you who are uninitiated, there are a lot of people who use their YouTube channel or their podcast or even their blog where they write articles to make hundreds of dollars a day in affiliate marketing. This is passive income because they're doing the work upfront and even six months or a year, as long as what they're talking about is relevant to somebody, they're still making money.

It might sound absurd but it's actually very reasonable to make an extra $100 a day in passive income if you do it right. It's not something that just anybody can do overnight. Yes, you will have to learn how to market yourself, create content and build an audience.

If you are not ready and prepared to learn new skills, leverage social media platforms, and build an audience that can help you make that extra money, give you a little bit of side income, away from the day job, a little bit more financial freedom, that's something it requires work. It's not for people who are lazy, it's not for people who wanna do get rich quick schemes, it's not for people like that.

This article will show you how to use your content on the internet using free platforms and social media to make hundreds of dollars a day selling somebody else's product. That's what affiliate market is and we're gonna go through it step by step.

What is Affiliate Marketing And How Can It Make You Money?

Affiliate Marketing is selling products on a commission only basis online. It's very similar to door-to-door salesmen or salespeople selling used cars or telemarketers. Basically, these are people that are calling you on the phone or that are going door-to-door. If you buy a car from a salesman on a lot for a thousand dollars, maybe $800 of that is going to the cars lot and $200 of that is going to the salesperson and you know it came from the customer.

Now, in affiliate marketing, it's very similar. It's almost the exact same thing. You have company, you have a customer and you have an affiliate. The company gives the product to the customer and the customer gives the money to the company. The affiliates job is to connect the company with the customer, and in return, the company pays the affiliates some money and the affiliate connects the customer with the company.

A company can have multiple offers. They can have multiple products that they offer Commission's on. Generally speaking, there are tens of thousands if not millions of companies that have affiliate programs. It gets very complicated to find all of the different affiliate programs that somebody might want to market.

So, the way it works is we have what's called affiliate networks. So, what is often the case is an affiliate is working with an affiliate network. An example of affiliate network is Clickbank, ShareASale, Avangate and Commission Junction. Amazon is an affiliate Network. Walmart has an affiliate Network. EBay has an affiliate Network. With lots of different products from lots of different sellers that you can earn a commission on.

Why You Should Start Affiliate Marketing

What I do know is a lot of people are having their circumstances taken out of their hands. I'm seeing people everyday tell me that they have lost their job out of nowhere or that the industry changed and they are scared of being pushed out. They're getting older and maybe the place isn't valuing loyalty and experience anymore. People are also having their health push them out of their career field and their job and they still need money to survive.

So what I'm trying to do is I want people that are in that situation to have the information that's going to help them get by or move to the next level and have more financial freedom and more control over their lives. So if I've helped you do that today, then I feel like I did a good job and I feel like my mission is closer to being accomplished.

How Much Can You Earn From Affiliate Marketing?

It takes several things if you want to succeed with Affiliate Marketing

1. Time
2. Energy
3. Commitment

Let's start with that it is very unrealistic to come in here and think that in the next few days you're going to be making thousands of dollars a month. It probably won't even happen in the next thirty days or maybe even 60 days. It's going to take some time to get there. The reality is that in order to make money online you cannot just half-ass things, you need to be committed to creating good content.

Whether it be YouTube videos, blogging or whatever it is, the key is to create something truly valuable to another human being. So the real question is if you were to be watching a piece of content that you're going to create would you personally receive value from it and would your time be well-spent. If you're thinking that you can just come on here and just spam comments and put out trashy comments, the reality is you're probably not going to be successful.

Now let's talk about how much money you can make. There are three tiers to affiliate marketing.

1. The hobbyist Affiliate Marketer: This could be a beginner first starting out doing Affiliate Marketing in their spare time. It's possible to eventually pull in a couple of thousand dollars per month with 2 or 3 hours work per day at this level.
2. The passionate Affiliate Marketer: This is someone who wants to do this as like a part or full-time job. Although this is nothing like a job and a way better lifestyle than having a normal 9-5, but I say job because this is a job replacing income where you can quite your full time job. At this level you can put in around 4-5 hours per day and eventually expect to earn $5,000 - $10,000 per month.
3. The pro Affiliate Marketer: This is the elite 1% of all people dedicated to making as much money as possible online with Affiliate Marketing. This is people who can spend anywhere up to 12 hours a day working and coming up with new ideas on how to make money online.

Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing

Pros of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a great way to make money from home and here's why.

• Most affiliate programs are 100% free for you to join. That means you can get started for a very low cost.
• No need for your own service or products.
• Don't have to worry about shipping products or keeping stock
• As long as you have internet access, you can work anytime and from anywhere in the world.
• You can set things up to earn passive income
• Affiliate marketing can be added to a current home business or done part time around your current full time job.
• Ideal for anyone who has a website. Although a website is not necessary needed to do affiliate marketing.

Cons of Affiliate Marketing

Although Affiliate Maketing is a great way to make money online, there are also some cons which put people off.

• It can take a while to generate enough traffic to make any kind of income. Unless using paid traffic.
• It's possible to not get credit for your referral which is known as affiliate hijacking.
• You have no control over the products or services
• Some companies have been known not to pay out. Although if you do research and find the good ones, this shouldn't be a problem.
• If you find a great program there can be high competition.

Reasons Why So Many People Fail At Affiliate Marketing

Reason 1: Looking to get rich fast and without effort

Reason 2: Do not know the products they promote

Reason 3: Procrastination

Reason 4:Not enough patience

Reason 5: Too many niches and websites

Reason 6: They go for selling, not for helping

Reason 7: Getting distracted by gimmicks and shiny objects

Reason 8: Promoting the wrong products

Affiliate Marketing Tools

1. The Essentials: Domain, Website And Web Hosting Tools

• Domain Registration: Bluehost

• Web Hosting: Bluehost

• Site Builder/CMS: WordPress

• Site Theme & Landing Page Builder:

2. Email Marketing: Capturing Leads And Sending Emails

• Capturing Emails: Thrive Leads

• Sending Emails: Aweber , Getresponse

3. Tracking And Converting

• Click Tracking: ClickMeter

• Link Management: GeniusLink

4. Content Ideas And Creation

• Content Research: Buzzsumo

• Visual Content: Canva

• Video Content: Camtasia

Choosing A Niche

First of all, you need to identify what niche you're in and you need to start looking. Do your research in Google and find out what affiliate programs exist for that niche. Take a look at the brands and the products that you use everyday for whatever you're doing, whether you're doing fitness or whether you're doing whatever it is you're doing.

Really look at that and then look into the research and see, do they have an affiliate deal? Type in the name of the brand and type in the words affiliate program in Google and it's as simple as that and you'll find results for the affiliate programs in your niche or for a company. Is that easy. You know, most things are usually as simple as Googling them. Many of these affiliate programs will ask if you have a website, you usually should have a website if you wanna do affiliate marketing even if it's not gonna be the primary place that you do that, it's more likely for you to be approved.

Now not every website does this but a lot of them do. Amazon is the easiest place to do affiliate marketing just because even though the percentages are very low in terms of your commission on the sales, the thing is they have more products and more variety of categories than anyone else and it's a brand people trust.

But you do usually need a website and they wanna know that you have some decent traffic there in order for them to approve you. Now sometimes they'll just approve you with your social media accounts. So if you don't have a website, just go ahead and try with your social media accounts. You can always apply again and use your website in the future if you're turned down. So that's one of the things you have to do.

Create a Website Or a Blog

Although you can do affiliate marketing without a website or a blog, in my opinion it is absolutely essential that you create one. If you create a blog it becomes a long term asset to your business. It's something you can build upon over time and it creates passive income.

I'm not going to go into all of the exact details on how to setup a blog here, there's other guides on this site which will teach you how to do that.

Finding Affiliate Products To Promote

1. Become an affiliate for products you already use

2. Join Bigger Affiliate Networks

Once you have joined some affiliate networks, you will be given a specific affiliate link or a number of affiliate links. You will then use these links in your campaigns and on your blog etc. This specific link ensures that it is from you and you will get paid for the referral.

Here's a list of some of the best affiliate networks. Depending on what niche you are in, you can do a Google search to find more.

• Shareasale
• CJ Affiliate
• Clickbank
• JVZoo
• Amazon Associates
• Ebay Partner Network
• Ratuken
• Flex Offers

Creating Content For Your Affiliate Marketing Promotions

Creating content that's helpful and useful to people in your niche that can directly relate to a product that you get an affiliate commission for or a service? Making content on different platforms, if you have the time to do it is going to be helpful. For many of you just starting a blog and writing like you know, on a weekend, writing three or five articles to get you started and then putting out one or two articles a week, taking only 30 minutes to an hour to write an article, that's going to be a good place for you guys to start.

Other Traffic Sources For Your Affiliate Marketing Promotions

Creating a blog is a great option for your affiliate marketing business and it eventually provides passive income. The only problem is it can take time to start seeing results. To start seeing results pretty much immediately you can also start using paid traffic if you have the budget.

Here's a list of both free and paid traffic sources you can start using to get your affiliate offers in front of the right people.

Free Traffic

• Social networks: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and many others
• Video Sites: YouTube, Vimeo
• Forums: Niche related forums
• Q&A Sites: Quora, eHow, Yahoo Answers
• Social Bookmarking: Dribbble, Scoopit, Digg
• Photo Sharing: Flickr
• Document Sharing: Slideshare
• Classified Sites: Craigslist

Paid Traffic

• PPC (Pay-Per-Click): Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Baidu, 7search
• Social Media: Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Youtube Ads, Linkedin Ads, Instagram Ads, Pinterest Ads
• Mobile: InMobi, Airpush, Go2Mobi
• Pop Traffic: Adcash, ProppelerAds
• PPV: Trafficvance, Leadimpact, AdOnNetwork
• Display: Google Display Network, BuySellAds, Clicksor
• Native Ads: Outbrain, Taboola

Conclusion

Hope you enjoyed this article on The Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing. There may seem a lot to learn and it looks very intimidating, but the best thing you can do is just take action, get started and learn as you go along.