How To Use Affiliate Marketing In Your Business - David Au

Introduction

My friends, I post the updates here, keeping you informed along my affiliate marketing journey, How To Use Affiliate Marketing In Your Business, and sharing what I have learned and applied. I am pleased to share with you guys on the affiliate Highway 401. It is great to meet you online.

Who is my audience? 

This post How To Use Affiliate Marketing In Your Business is created for:

1. people who search the Internet to learn more about digital marketing
2. people who have just started building a blog for interest
3. people who want to develop a digital online store for their products  
4. people who want to learn online business

Today, let us walk through the what, where, and how of affiliate marketing using some free and essential online tools primarily. The Internet offers plenty of possibilities for making money as extra income. You would agree that today's technology makes it easier to make money at home and even on holiday in the resort. 

Table of Content

1. What is Affiliate Marketing?
2. What's the difference between Advertiser and a Publisher? 
3. Advertiser (merchant)
4. What and where is a Niche Market?
5. What and where are the Platforms?
6. Who are the Merchants?
7. How does affiliate marketing work?
8. Which Products to Promote?
9. How to Start a Promotion?
10. What are Keywords? 
11. The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing
12. Why use Google Blogger for affiliate marketing?
13. Conclusion

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Now let us touch on the business model that may make extra income. I am referring to affiliate marketing here. Affiliate marketing means selling goods and services from other persons or companies who we call merchants. These merchants provide the products and commission to you (affiliates) upon your successful deals. It is similar to a front store making a profit by selling products from the merchants.

What's the difference between Advertiser and a Publisher? 

As I signed up for a free CJ (Commission Junction) affiliate account at www.cj.com, I am the affiliate earning commissions. This is what CJ refers to as a publisher. 

 

If you become an affiliate (also known as the publisher), you can do a lot with this free publisher account keeping in mind that there are rules to maintain. The  Publisher Service Agreement (PSA) you agreed to when signed up. You must also strictly observe the stated terms and conditions of the advertisers (merchant) that you promote.

Advertiser (merchant)

Advertisers are called merchants by some affiliate programs. They are part of a paid program and have a contractual agreement. In short, advertisers pay fees to merchants (e.g., Amazon, CJ, Clickbank) and pay publishers (affiliate) commissions for successful transactions that originate from your marketing/promotional efforts.                                 

                                                  

Affiliate marketers make money as the middle man like the front store but do not carry inventory or delivery. You do not have to do accounting and bookkeeping. You make the commission as your profit upon the successful transactions. That is the extra income. Affiliates focus on promoting the products and connecting with the customers. Commission rates vary according to different products and merchants. Refer to the individual merchant for the detailed rate.

What is a Niche Market?

A niche market is a unique section of the big marketplace. It is incredible but small. The big boys overlook it as they focus on the big market. Examples organic food, underwater cameras, race bikes, vegan products, nostalgic photography, antique cars,  motor racing, space travel, luxurious cruise, adventurous tours, quality life, luxurious life, hybrid vehicles, plugin cars, etc. The list goes on. When using your niche market, people relate to their experience,  learning, gender orientation, passion, health, age, and personality. Here are a couple of examples for choosing a niche market.  

An energetic young man loves cycling. He cruises on the road every day on his bike for hours as his routine exercise. He has Fun with that, and he wants to join the bicycle tournament. He simply falls in love with his bicycle. This young man could choose race bicycles as a niche market if he goes into affiliate marketing. He can go selling race bikes online. He can source from Amazon or Aliexpress and sell via such platforms earning money as deals are done.

A middle-aged vegan lady can sell vegan food through Amazon. She can also sell vegan digital products such as e-books and e-manuals from Clickbank, making commission money with successful deals.

Here is another example of a niche market, namely Tubebuddy. It is a tool for Youtube content creators. As we all know, Youtube is a mega-colossal company providing online video sharing and social media platforms. It is the second most visited website, with more than one billion monthly users who watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. Youtube focuses on the global market overlooking some niches which can be further enhanced with unique know-how and technologies. Tubebuddy perfectly fits in this niche with its unique know-how and technologies. As  YouTubers working on the Youtube dashboard would find the scope of the dashboard is limited and rigid. That allows a specialist to fill the niche giving video creators more functionalities and better tools to fulfill their dreams as content video creators. Before starting any marketing activity, research is essential. Doing plenty of research would ensure better success. Take your time choosing our niche. It is better to do our research thoroughly rather than make a rushed decision.

What are the Platforms?

Amazon

Amazon is a massive platform with 200 million visitors per month. She has 2.5 million sellers. The product ranges cover lots of well-known commercial brands and digital brands. Here, access more information regarding marketing the Amazon products with your website. 

Commission Junction

Commission Junction is also known as CJ. She has 70,000 publishers selling big-name commercial brands as well digital brands. She carries thousands of brands.

Shareasale

Shareasale is fast-growing, with 16,500+ merchants, 225,000 publishers, and 182 million sales in 2020. Join and sign up with Shareasale. A watch chair in your backyard from this platform.

Clickbank

Clickbank sells primarily digital products such as training e-books and manuals. Clickbank empowers entrepreneurs like you. 

Who are the Merchants?

Which and how to choose your merchants? There are plenty of merchants from the platforms I have mentioned above. They are reputable multinational platforms. Therefore sourcing suitable merchants is not a problem at all. Choose the names we know and are a family with. Make use of  Google search, Youtube search, and Amazon search. They help as they give more insight for us, making our decision more accessible and better.

Which Products to Promote?

There are thousands and thousands of products. You must find the most potential and suitable matches for your niche market. Before selecting your products to promote, search relevant  information for the top 10 ranking  products with the following free search tools:

1. Google Search
2. Youtube Search
3. Amazon Associate Search
4. Commission Junction Search
5. Shareasale Search

Choose the top sellers related to your niche market and promote them. It would save a lot of your time, and it works much better than just choosing randomly from the top of your mind. Below is an example:

I like a quality life. To help me live this quality life, I need to make extra money on my retirement pension. I like the concept of making money and online business. I joined Clickbank and became her affiliate selling digital products. As an affiliate member, I access the Clickbank affiliate dashboard to choose my selected product among hundreds of products to sell online.   I set the following filters on the dashboard: language, countries, physical book & upsell, recurring, and e-business. Here go the shortlist of products from which you can choose to promote. Each product has two links. One is the product landing page link for the prospect, and the other is the affiliate link for the affiliate information. I selected the landing page link and then promoted the link in my blogs and videos. Now we come to the crucial part: how to promote the product. 

How to Start a Promotion?

The merchants provide affiliates with good tools for their promotion. They are in the affiliate dashboard. There are other free resources for promoting traffic to your product-related website.   They are the social media, and they are:

1. Youtube
2. Facebook
3. Instagram
4. Twitter
5. Quora
6. Pinterest
7. Tumblr
8. Digg
9. Vimeo

What are Keywords? How do they work?

You need to have the "product title" and "product description " when promoting your product." Use keywords in the title and description. Search engines need such keywords to find your websites, and these keywords should be targeted and relevant to your selected topic. They want well-targeted and relevant keywords. Here to more details regarding keywords in heading 1, heading 2, and Heading 3.

You can check out the top-ranking keywords by going to some popular sites and right-click your mouse there. You can see the source code there and the keywords used. Now you can borrow their ideas. It helps a lot. . Find your relevant keywords from this free tool.    Another tool is also handy for writing our advertisements. It is the swipe file. It is beneficial if you need some examples to help you write your own advertising and call to action messages. 

Youtube

Go to Youtube.com and signup for an account. It is easy to join, and it is free. You can upload your own videos and other people's videos with this account. Give a name under the title for each video and brief information under the description. You can include a link to promote your website/product in this area. 

For example, this link to Freelance Pay Cheque" is a digital product from Clickbank, and when people buy through this link, I get some commission.                                                

Youtube #Shorts 

Shorts are now in the beta version. It offers a $100 million fund from 2021 -to 2022. It is time to join as it is free. Here people do not have any requirement to join. People do not need 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time per the Youtube (regular) requirement. It is easy to join, and everyone can share the Youtube #Shorts fund.                                        

Facebook

Discover, buy and sell goods with Facebook Marketplace. FB Marketplace is an e-commerce platform that connects sellers and buyers through meaningful interactions and unique interests. People can post their affiliate links to Facebook, the enormous social media where friends connect. Come here to visit me via Facebook.

Instagram

People can automatically upload videos from their cellphones to Instagram and post them to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. It is cool. It helps boost traffic to your vlogs, blogs, and websites. 

 You are welcome to visit me on Instagram.

Blogger

With Blogger, I have created several blogs. Some for Fun, some for Google Adsense, and some to promote my affiliate programs. It is straightforward to use, and it is free. Come and visit me at:

1.  RHTTC55 eMagazine
2.  Grandpa and Grandma
3.  Cruise Holiday
4.  My Youtube Channel
5. My Quora Space

The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing
Pros

1. massive market with billion-dollar business worldwide

2. startup cost is meager 

3. no need for academic qualification.

4. maintenance cost is meager

5. an excellent passive income 

6. work on the go as your like and free from 9 to 5 routine 

7. no need for after-sale account service and stock inventory

8. you are your own boss with complete independence

9. marketing support from merchants is free and readily online

10. earn income 24/7 throughout the year

Cons

1. no control of Affiliate Marketing Programs

2. no control of Competition

3. no established income 

4. business is not secured 

5. It needs people with a lot of self-discipline

6. needs a lot of perseverance and survive endless failures

7. business crash due to internet Hijack

8. too much spam and scam 

9. failure rate is very high

10. it is not your cup of tea

Why use Google Blogger for affiliate marketing?

Google Blogger, owned and hosted by Google, is a free online blogging platform. You can use it to create, write and publish a blog. It lets you publish all sorts of content, from written articles to images to videos. Blogger is one of the first free publishing platforms. You can use it to create a personal blog or website. It was initially launched in 1999 by a company called Pyra Labs. In 2003, Google bought Blogger and became one of the most popular blogging platforms. It's helped millions of people to start blogs, earn money and launch their careers.

Conclusion

With today's technologies,  the Internet offers plenty of possibilities for making money online. You would agree that people can make money at home and even on holiday in the resort. However, it is not making money overnight. It requires a lot of dedication and hard work in the affiliate's research, learning, and persistent actions. It is essential to invest time and money focusing on your chosen niche and work out the action plan towards your goal of achieving affiliate success. 

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