Affiliate marketing can be very lucrative. One can make thousands of dollars every month promoting other vendors’ products. It’s also very easy to start too! But it requires two things: a working knowledge of how to sell and an affiliate program to join. And if one doesn’t have one, one either needs to create their own or find one to join.
Where to find products to promote
Affiliate marketing is internet advertising where the supplier of goods pays a fee to one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate. One form of affiliate marketing is selling products through other websites, such as Amazon Associates, eBay Partner Network, or Google AdSense. These websites are known as publishers and include blogs, online newspapers, and auction sites. Another form of affiliate marketing is selling products through one web page, in fixed text or banner ads.
There are two main categories of affiliate plans: pay-per-click and pay-per-sale. Pay-per-click affiliate plans pay affiliates according to the number of times people click on the affiliate’s advertising. Pay-per-sale affiliate plans pay affiliates according to the amount of revenue generated by the affiliate’s referrals. Pay-per-sale affiliate plans are usually more profitable, but the traffic has to be high quality. Pay-per-click affiliate plans can be more profitable with less traffic, but traffic quality can be poor.
Affiliate marketing can generate a lot of traffic for very little money. A pay-per-click affiliate plan can generate traffic for pennies per click, but pay-per-sale affiliate plans can generate traffic for a few dollars per sale (or even more). Affiliate marketing can work for almost any website but works best with websites that focus on a specific subject. If one website doesn’t focus specifically on a specific subject, it’s probably better to avoid affiliate advertising.
Use one niche knowledge to advantage.
Some people are good at marketing. Others are good at writing or programming, or graphic design. But most of us are good at something. And if one can combine one special skill with a niche understanding of a topic, one has a powerful tool. Niche knowledge is the knowledge that can be effectively applied to one field. It is the knowledge of someone who works in a particular field and a narrow field: who does it better than others.
Niche knowledge is useful in several respects. First, it has a multiplier effect: it is more valuable than general expertise. Second, it’s specialized. Third, it’s personal. Fourth, it’s valuable. The multiplier effect is easy to understand. Focusing on one field makes one less likely to be distracted by things one doesn’t know or by too much noise. Second, one is less likely to be wrong about things one doesn’t know. Third, one finds it easier and quicker to recognize things one does know. Fourth, one’s intuition about how things work in one’s field is sharpened. Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, one knows where to look for new information.
Affiliate marketing works best when internet users are looking for specific products. For example, a pay-per-click affiliate plan might work well for search engines, and read the article again if one feels confused and overthinks over a small misunderstanding.