What’s Affiliate Marketing About?

Affiliate Marketing is touted as being your best shot at the laptop lifestyle. Affiliate Marketers who have made it are pictured on a magnificent beach, in some exotic destination, living the dream.

But what’s Affiliate Marketing About? Is it for You? And what does it take to be successful at it?

Let’s find out.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Here’s a handy diagram I found on Canva that illustrates the basic concept of Affiliate Marketing.

Image Credit: Free on Canva Pro

The simplest definition of Affiliate Marketing.: Merchants pay Affiliate Marketers a commission in return for sales.

How does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Here’s another Canva diagram that gives more detail.

Image Credit: Free on Canva Pro

Here’s a breakdown:

• Digital Marketers join a Merchant’s Affiliate Programs
• Affiliates Promote Products or Services to their audience on their websites or social media channels
• Some of their visitors click on a link in their post
• This link leads to the Merchant’s website
• Some of these visitors purchase a product or service from the Merchant
• The Merchant pays their Affiliates commission for each sale

Image Credit: Free on Canva Pro

What Do Affiliate Marketers Do?

Their role is simply to promote products online.

Often they do this subtly, by just dropping a link to a Merchant into a post.

Here’s an example. Did you notice that I placed a link over the words, “Free on Canva Pro” in the captions below each image on this post?

Canva is the Merchant and I’m the Affiliate. I’ve been promoting Canva for ages because it’s a fantastic graphics tool and great source of free images. I was thrilled when they finally introduced an Affiliate program.

I only started adding their Affiliate link into my posts a few days ago (very subtly) and I was interested to see today that those links have already been receiving clicks (14 so far).

Now I don’t expect tons of conversions (people upgrading to Canva PRO), because the FREE version of Canva is so brilliant. I used it for years and only upgraded when my online business started making reasonable money.

But hey, if I’m crazy about something, I might as well promote it. And if I earn a commission for doing so, marvy!

What’s Affiliate Marketing About? from Lauren Kinghorn

Affiliate Marketers also Review Products and Services.

Here’s an example of a more detailed review I created on Canva when I had just upgraded to Canva for Work (now called Canva Pro).

Video Reviews are becoming extremely popular too.

Now, let’s answer the underlying question that’s probably on your mind.

Is Affiliate Marketing for Me?

Image Credit: Free on Canva Pro

6 Top Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

1. Low Start-Up Costs

There’s no need to invent, design, create or manufacture your own product or service to become an affiliate marketer because affiliate marketers promote existing products or services.

Therefore, all Affiliate Marketers need to get set up in business is a website, landing page or sales funnel.  Some Affiliate Marketers don’t even bother to create their own website but instead, create video reviews and promote affiliate products on YouTube.  Others build an email list and promote their affiliate offers via email.

Many affiliate programs are free to join. You can find a product or service you’d like to promote, read reviews of existing users and craft your own review, without even trying out the product or service yourself.

2. Low Overheads

Affiliates don’t have to buy in or keep stock, which also means no warehousing or shipping costs.

Affiliates don’t need staff to help them run their Affiliate Marketing business, most work alone.

Affiliates get to work from home. All they need is a laptop and WiFi.

3. No Hassles

Affiliates don’t have to deal with Customers directly, nor handle complaints or refunds.

4. High Income Potential

Especially if you’re selling high ticket products and working for a merchant paying high commissions.

5. Do it Right Once, Get Paid for Life

It can take some time for Affiliate Marketers to gain authority online and start generating significant traffic to their posts and reviews. But once they do, they are set for life. Once one or two posts go viral, the sales start rolling in.

Here’s where it gets really exciting. This is how Affiliate Marketers earn passive or leveraged income because a well-crafted, evergreen post or sales funnel can continue to generate sales for years.

6. Work from Anywhere

Once sales are happening on autopilot, that dream of becoming a digital nomad can become a reality.

I’ll keep exploring the topic of Affiliate Marketing over the next few days. If you’re keen to learn more, look out for my future posts or read my review on Legendary Marketer.

* If you purchase anything through a link in this post, you should assume that I have an affiliate relationship with the company providing the product or service that you purchase, and that I’ll be compensated in some small way at no extra cost to you.

Next Up:  What’s An Affiliate Marketing Training Course?