If you are looking for a guide that will explain affiliate marketing for dummies, you have come to the right place. We try our best to keep things simple and ensure you go away fully understanding a subject and also go aware with a clear path on how you can get started, if you so wish.
Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way of earning money online. But I often find that people try to overcomplicate the process and that is when we start to feel lost, when really it is really quite a simple premise. Let’s make sure you fully understand how Affiliate Marketing works?
How Does Affiliate Marketing Really Work?
There are 3 parties that are involved in affiliate marketing. The first party is you as an affiliate marketer. The second party is the seller of the product or service. The third party is the buyer of that product.
Let us use an example to break this down. Let’s say an affiliate marketer has a blog that is focused on a niche which is in the realms of fitness, let’s say losing belly fat. We will get into the need for a niche later.
So, this affiliate marketer has a blog that focuses on helping people lose belly fat. They have a ton of hints and tips, they also promote products or services that are relevant to that niche. It might be a kitchen gadget that makes preparing a particular recipe easier. That is where the affiliate bit comes in. The affiliate marketer links their blog post about that gadget to a marketplace such as Amazon through an affiliate link.
The readers of that blog read that particular blog post and decide they want that gadget as it makes preparing that particular (health shake) recipe easier to do and so they follow that link to Amazon and buy the product.
The blog owner has just earned a commission through affiliate marketing.
That is the simple premise behind affiliate marketing. You promote products and services and receive a reward or commission for introducing a buyer.
It is a method that benefits both the buyer and the seller as it reduces the costs of marketing which can be an expensive business and Amazon actually launched in this way. When Amazon first launched it was a small online book store and rather than spending money on advertising, they reached out to their buyers to promote their books to others with the reward of a percentage of the sale price.
Now Amazon is the biggest marketplace in the world and still follow that same model but cover a whole lot more than just books.
Related Post: How to Make Money with the Amazon Associates Program
How Do They Track Your Sales?
This is the point where people can overcomplicate affiliate marketing. You see it involves tracking cookies and if you do not know what a cookie is, this is where it can seem like it is an alien language.
Let’s describe how a cookie works, and then we can explain how they track your sales.
A computer cookie is a small file sent from a web page to your computer to be stored in your web browser. The main purpose of this file is to help the web page keep track of your visits and activity. That doesn’t always mean a bad thing. Think about if you do your online shopping online, a cookie will help keep track of the items in your shopping basket. Without cookies, this couldn’t happen.
If you stay logged on your social media, cookies also help keep you logged in.
So, how does that work with affiliate marketing. Well, when you sign up with an affiliate network or Amazon, you are given a special link that you use when you are promoting these products and services.
When that reader read that article and decided to buy that kitchen gadget we were discussing earlier. The blog post would have had a link that went straight to the sales page on Amazon. That link would have had a signature in it that identified that it was you who introduced this buyer to Amazon.
You might be asking how cookies came into this. That buyer might not buy that product you recommended but explored Amazon a bit and bought a similar one. The cookies would have meant you still get the commission for the sale. Amazon offers 90-day links, so if they go through your link. Have a look at the product and decide they will look later, as long as they do actually buy it you can get the sale.
Let’s Explain A Niche
So, affiliate marketing works by you introducing someone to a product or service and receiving a commission for doing so, 
but you will notice earlier I mentioned that you would need a niche.
Whilst the premise of Affiliate Marketing is really that simple, it isn’t enough to just sign up with Amazon and creating a blog website and promoting a load of products…
If you start too broad, you will find it much harder to get started and find any success. You need to target a specific niche, that is very focused and will give you the better edge to get started with Affiliate Marketing.
What Is a Niche?
A niche is a narrow segment of the market with which to target. What the hell does that actually mean??
The best way to pick a niche and actually understand what a niche market is by going onto Amazon. Picking a category and then see what the sub-categories were and click on one, then keeping doing that until you cannot go any further. That is how narrow you need to go to start a niche.
If I picked Men’s Grooming, there are six sub-categories:
- Shaving
- Skin Care
- Body Care
- Hair Care
- Dental Care
- Kits & Gift Sets
But those are still too broad for a niche. Let’s pick Shaving and then this brings to the following sub-categories:
- o Manual Shavers
- o Electric Shavers
- o Groomers & Trimmers
- o Pre-Treatments
- o Aftershaves
- o Accessories
In that category, those would be my starting points. But honestly, we could go narrow if we wanted to and you could target disposable shavers for example.
When thinking about your niche, you want to target something you already have an interest in and then target as narrow a niche as you can. You will expand later on into the broader market, but the first stage of your business will be getting your name out there. That is why we need to target a niche.
Always start with a tiny segment of the market to improve your chances of getting it working right and then you can start getting broader as you have built up your authority.
Become an Authority in Your Niche
This is an important one to making Affiliate Marketing work for you. Think about it, would you buy something if you didn’t trust the seller, the promoter, the marketplace??
The first stages of an affiliate marketing business are showcasing yourself as an authority or expert in your chosen Niche.
Why am I going to trust you and follow your suggestions… that is because you are trustworthy and know your stuff.
That is the place you want to get yourself to after choosing your Niche.
That is also why we suggest you pick a niche that you actually know a lot about or are willing to learn a lot about and it is much easier if you like the niche too.
Imagine if I started a blog on women’s fashion… Yeah, I struggle with men’s fashion let alone making people believe I know anything about women’s fashion.
Let’s Confirm your Understanding
You start off by selecting a niche, a tiny segment of the market. It is based on an interest or passion you already have with that topic and can show some knowledge about it to others. You are willing to learn more about that topic and will start on your journey to becoming an authority (expert) in that niche to help people who want to understand that niche too.
You don’t need to be an expert writer, as the art of affiliate marketing through a blog is that it is a conversational type article. If you can explain it to one of your friends, then you can definitely succeed within affiliate marketing.
What Next…?
People get put off the idea of affiliate marketing when they learn they need to learn how to create a website or start
blogging or anything technical as they are not that great on the laptop or computer. This is where I can come in and help.
Before I started my first blog, I didn’t have a clue on how to do anything like create a website. I didn’t even know what Affiliate Marketing was. But I was looking for a way to earn money from home.
I stumbled onto the topic of Affiliate Marketing and had a number of the worries that you may be thinking right now…
But I found something that made it simple and easy to understand, I could learn everything I needed.
All I needed to put in was TIME & EFFORT.
It doesn’t matter what your skill level is with a computer or that you are not that great at writing or social media. Because I got expert help and support from day one.
If you are willing to put in the time and effort, like I did and spend time learning and following the steps that are involved, you will shortly have the following:
Your Own Affiliate Marketing Website
What I am offering is a training platform that can help anyone of any skill level create their own affiliate marketing business that will earn them money online. You will gain access to a community of like-minded entrepreneurs that will be on hand to help you at any step to ensure you understand what to do and how to do it. You will also gain access to my help and support at any time.
The only thing that will stop you succeeding at Affiliate Marketing is you telling yourself you cannot do it.
I know plenty of affiliate marketers who are earning full-time wages from their businesses and some of them didn’t know how to go on Facebook before they started.
What Am I Offering?
I am offering you access to a training platform that has transformed the lives of thousands of wannabe Affiliate Marketers. It offers World Class Training, Access to Websites & Expert Help and Support and what is more you get to join for FREE.
A Starter Membership is absolutely free, with no catch. It allows you to fully explore the platform and start your affiliate marketing business.
Think about it, by the end of lesson 4 you could have your own affiliate marketing website in your chosen niche. It will be fully optimised to be found by the search engines and all you would need to add from that point is content.
Everything involved with an Affiliate Marketing business can be taught and learned and Wealthy Affiliate will be there to help you at every step of the way.
3 years ago, I didn’t even know what Affiliate Marketing was and now I am sharing my knowledge to help others find genuine opportunities within Affiliate Marketing.
If you want to start your own affiliate marketing business with expert help and support, then I highly recommend you sign up for free below. Just click on the banner below and start your own affiliate marketing business for free.
If you still have any questions or want to learn a little more before committing anything, I totally understand. But I ask that rather than worrying about it ask me any questions in the comments below and I will definitely respond to you with an answer.
Good Luck with Your Journey within Affiliate Marketing, whichever direction you decide to go.
