How We Structured this Gameplan:

Like all Marketing Legends Gameplans, the information contained is separated into three parts, Start, Launch, and Grow. Let’s jump in.

What is affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way of earning money by promoting other people’s products.

The biggest hurdle to overcome with affiliate marketing is that it can be hard to find reliable information on how to do it well. This gameplan outlines all the steps needed to get started with affiliate marketing and how you can optimize your efforts and ultimately earn more money. Everything we share in this gameplan has been tested over time so that we know it works. It doesn’t matter if this is your first-time trying affiliate marketing or if you’ve tried before without success; this gameplan will show you exactly what needs to happen for your efforts to pay off once and for all.

How affiliate marketing works

Each affiliate is given unique URL’s or product reseller criteria by the merchant. This allows them to track who is responsible for a sale. Typically, the process will look like this:

An affiliate marketer creates some form of content and includes an affiliate link to the product being sponsored. A member of the audience clicks on one of their affiliate links, which takes them to a product page and options to buy. The audience member makes a purchase, and the merchant is able to tag that the sale using the Affiliate Link. Because the sale was made by the affiliate, the merchant then compensates the affiliate for a portion of the sale revenue in the form of a commission or profit share.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

The best thing about being an affiliate marketer is that you can generate income by promoting your favorite products and services with little to no overhead costs. Remember, as an affiliate, you are promoting someone else’s products which allows you to focus on sales and marketing.

Commissions:

Because of fulfillment and shipping costs, tangible products, like most items on Amazon, typically pay a lower percentage per transaction. In turn, the amount paid out on digital products is usually much higher.

Affiliate commissions can range from a quarter of a percent to 100 percent or more, but we estimate the average commission amount for affiliates to be between 5%-35%.

Audience:

As an affiliate marketer, you get to choose and learn about your target niche. If you’re passionate about the products or services that you’re representing than your enthusiasm will shine through, making it easier to sell those products. You’ll also get to network within your target industry which will bring about new connections, friends, and customers.

Overhead & Costs:

One of the most significant advantages of launching your own affiliate program is that you eliminate the third-party costs that come with external affiliate networks. Your initial testing budget is determined by the vertical you select, the kind of offers that can be tested, and the competitors. When it comes to offers, the lower the reward, the more likely you are to get conversions.

Brand Affinity:

Affiliate marketers can leverage brand affinity and awareness to sell their clients products. Partnering with brands that have high brand recognition makes it easier for affiliate marketers to sell.

*Tip: Keep in mind that the higher the brand recognition, the lower the commission will likely be.

Remote Work:

Affiliate Marketing can be done almost anywhere with an internet connection. Because your job is to sell and market products, the company you are sponsoring will typically handle all of the logistics and delivery.

How to find affiliate products that are worth promoting

1.       Become an affiliate for products you already use – Do not promote products that are just good for money. Promote affiliate products that you would use personally as this will make it much easier to create content for your business. It’s important to keep in mind that even if you love a product, you should consider if the rewards for promoting that product will be worthwhile.

2.       Look for products that are up and coming and gaining popularity – If people are recommending a certain product, that’s a good indicator that it might be worth promoting. You can check Amazon reviews, YouTube and various forums for people who are actively talking about new products and services.

3.       Join an affiliate network – An affiliate network is an organization of affiliates, such as companies and individuals who have agreed to pay each other for bringing in new business or sales using the concept of two-tier marketing. After signing up, marketers receive unique URLs they post on their websites or social media profiles which contain tracking information about leads and referrals generated by others within this system (network). Marketers then earn commissions based upon performance.

Affiliate networks serve as intermediaries between advertisers and publishers—that’s why we refer to them as “middlemen”. They take care of all the hard work involved like transaction processing, payment management, technical support etc., making it so affiliate marketers can simply focus on promoting their products and merchants on their business.

There are thousands of affiliate networks out there that will allow you to promote their products. You can also join a few affiliate networks that allow you to promote multiple products. Clickbank, Commission Junction and JV Zoo are some popular one’s worth checking out.

Creating content for your blog or social media accounts

After you’ve decided on the right affiliate product for you, it’s time to start creating content and marketing materials that will convert into paying customers. It’s crucial to create the right content in order to get the results you expect.

Create Quality Content:

The tone you use in your content can have a big impact on how successful it is. To appeal to an audience, know what they prefer and are interested in. Conduct research on who your audience is and their buying intent. Use this research to create content that is genuine and triggers emotion in the reader.

*Tip: Don’t sacrifice quality over quantity when it comes to content.

Content Delivery Methods:

While you’re researching your audience, try to understand what kind of content they consume. You can get creative in this stage of your affiliate marketing process and use methods such as: landing pages, e-books, newsletters, email, blog posts, videos.

Data:

Data analytics are an absolute necessity to accurately measure the success of any affiliate marketing program, no matter what form it takes. Whether you use email campaigns or online videos for webinars, trackable conversions only come with proper data analysis that can be used in conjunction with all forms of communication. In addition to Google Analytics, there are many data collection tools that can help you determine where your efforts are working and where they’re not. Check out our resources section for a list of tools we recommend.

Keywords:

There are several ways to conduct affiliate keyword research, but the best way is by using Google Keyword Planner. This tool can be found at https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/ With it you’ll get information on what keywords people use in your niche that have high search volume and how often they’re bid on each one of them so as not give up too much ground when ranking for those terms.

Frequency:

The frequency that you post your content to social media can vary by platform. It’s important that you are consistent with posting but are careful not to post too frequently. Below is the number of times you should attempt to post per week:

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter: 5x

Linkedin, Youtube: 3x

Building a list of subscribers and followers:

Find an email provider:

Signing up with an email marketing provider is the first step to building your own list. You can create visually appealing emails in these platforms, schedule them for automatic delivery and it will be sent out automatically. For new businesses, we recommend using either MailChimp, ConstantContact, or ClickFunnels as the pricing is affordable.

*Tip: Many countries have implemented anti-spam laws. Make sure you understand these laws before you hit send on your emails.

Create Landing Pages:

Add subscribe options:

Your email marketing provider typically provides you with widgets that can be embedded on your website. This is a great way to increase the amount of traffic and engagement from visitors. Make sure the placement of your form fields are aligned with the appropriate call to action.

Create email campaigns:

You can make your engagements much more impactful by using email campaigns. One way is sending new subscribers a simple onboarding message that introduces them to your brand and reiterates the value they’ll get by becoming a subscriber. You can also create a series of emails for people interested in specific products or services offered through your company. Here is an example of an email sequence that we use at Marketing Legends:

Increasing traffic to your site:

SEO:

SEO is a process by which an organization can improve their organic ranking in non-paid searches. Organic Search Engine Optimization, or just “SEO,” has been around for many years and continues to be one of the most powerful ways that businesses have found success across all industries. As an affiliate marketer, you should understand the in’s and out’s of SEO as it will increase exposure to your affiliate products and subscribers. To learn more about SEO, visit our SEO Gameplan:

SEM:

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a way to increase the visibility of your website in search engine results pages. This strategy involves spending money on creating targeted content for specific keywords related to what you sell.

In search engine marketing, advertisers only pay for impressions that result in visitors. This makes it an efficient way to spend one’s marketing dollars and get better rankings on organic results by incrementally improving how well websites rank with search engines each time someone visits them.

*Tip: We recommend beginners to SEM start with Google AdWords.

Social Media Advertising: