Over the past years, the numbers of internet users have increased tremendously all over the world. Business owners have recognized the need to move their offline products to the online world. These changes have enabled the ‘smart people’ living amongst us to become self employed. The truth is, not many unemployed folks see the vast business opportunities the internet has provided. A new breed of Entrepreneurs have emerged; while other unemployed graduates are sulking about the unavailability of jobs, these group of
people are silently milking money by rendering services and utilizing their creative minds to pump money into their accounts. There are several businesses available on the internet but today I will be discussing affiliate marketing and how you can work for yourself using this system.What is affiliate marketing?
In layman terms, affiliate marketing refers to a ‘middle man businesses.’ In affiliate marketing, the affiliate suggests a product to an end user and gets paid a certain commission based on agreement with the product owner. For example, in the real estate world, agents are paid 5-10% commission for bringing a client to purchase a property; the same applies on the internet world. Affiliate marketing has become essential for business owners on the internet to make more sales. The affiliate marketing business is a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate. The affiliate gets paid referral commission between 10-90% as the case maybe. There are thousands of internet marketing affiliate program worldwide; as with every other internet business, there are also affiliate marketing scams you should look out for. In order to avoid these pitfalls, it’s advisable to do your due diligence before promoting any affiliate program. There thousands of free affiliate programs on the internet today to choose from. However, internet affiliate program require you to pay a setup fee to have access to the necessary promotional tools required for you to promote the program. Affiliate marketing is somewhat similar to network marketing; the only difference is that most network marketing companies require you to make a purchase of their products in order to qualify as a business owner. For some others, you would need to maintain your distributor status by making a monthly purchase. In affiliate marketing, there is no need for this; you just promote the products and get paid.
How does affiliate marketing work?
The online affiliate marketing system is a complex system designed to keep track of the activities of all the affiliates of the program. The merchant can deduce how many sales each affiliate makes in a day and automatically pays out commissions. The automatic track and pay process is designed with the aid of cookies. Normally, when you sign up with a website as an affiliate, a sub-link is created for you; it is through this sub-link you can sign up people to purchase products and you get your commission. For example, if I have a website that sells health products at www.siselpro.com; if you sign up as an affiliate to sell my product, a sub-link is generated which reads something like http://bizmogul.mysiselpro.com/ . You can start promoting the links by writing articles and posting on article directories, posting on your facebook page, running facebook adverts, you can also build your own website and have the affiliate links embedded into it. Whenever anybody purchases a product through that link, the system automatically debits the customers account, credits the merchant account and credits the affiliate account with the appropriate commissions. Imagine if you are paid a $10 commission for a product and you make 10 sales in a day! That’s a cool $100 for a day’s work! What if you do this consistently for 30 days! Do the mathematics.
Affiliate marketing is a good way for newbies to make money on the internet. You can easily setup a blog using www.blogger.com, write some articles and reviews about the product you want to promote and include links to the products. You get paid a commission whenever a visitor makes a purchase of the product through the link provided. There are several affiliates programs, some of the popular ones include:
1. www.clickbank.com
2. www.amazon.com
3. www.rapbank.com
4. www.affiliateseeking.com ( provides link for several affiliate programs)
Earning money as an affiliate takes a little patience and mastery. You need lots of visitors to visit the links or your website in order to make sales. Facebook is one of the best ways to generate targeted traffic to your website. Have you ever wondered why ads are displayed to you on Facebook? These ads are shown based on your interest, you can set aside a budget for Facebook ads; the good thing is if done well it converts like crazy.
I wish you the very best in your Entrepreneurship sojourn.
To your success.
Ikenna Victor Agina
agina.ikenna@gmail.com
