How to make money with affiliate marketing in 2024
The Internet is full of articles about affiliate marketing, and you want to know what it’s all about? That’s already a step in the right direction! Everyone can make money by promoting on the Internet, even if you’re not that experienced in marketing. Today we’re going to go over all the nuances of making money from affiliate programs. Let’s look at what it is and how you can get started with affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing
It is one of the ways to monetize your online presence. For example, you have a website, a blog or a social media account with an active audience. You put an affiliate link to an advertiser’s website and earn a commission every time your new visitor clicks the link and performs a targeted action: a purchase, a subscription, an install or a registration. Some affiliate programs even pay for recurring customers, it depends on the terms of the particular program.
Why are advertisers willing to pay you for that? Because it’s profitable for them too – they pay only for the result – the committed targeted actions.
There are a couple of terms we might use here you’re probably not familiar with yet.
Publisher, aka an “affiliate”, is an owner of any Internet resource – website or social media
account. Publishers promote affiliate links and get paid for it from an advertiser or CPA-network.
Affiliate program, aka an “offer, is the terms of a particular affiliate product/service’s promotion. It includes information on the amount of payout, the targeted action, the type of affiliate program, some basic information about the advertiser and its product/service, important metrics, allowed and prohibited sources of traffic, promo materials if available.
Targeted action is the action by the user which brings a publisher their commission. It’s determined in the affiliate program.
The main types of such targeted actions are:
- purchase of services and products
- install
- registration
- subscription
There are less popular ones, such as watching videos or even just clicking to the advertiser’s website, but they are not used much now, because of their low profitability for advertisers.
How does affiliate marketing work?
The whole process is very simple: publishers join affiliate programs and place their unique affiliate links on a website, blog or social media accounts. Users follow the link to the advertiser’s website, perform a targeted action, and a publisher gets paid.
How to find affiliate programs?
There are two ways.
The first one is looking for affiliate programs on the Internet, contacting each company separately, each time confirming the quality of your traffic and solving all technical issues on your own.
The second one is joining a CPA network by registering and going through moderation only once and getting an ultimate access to thousands of affiliate programs, as for example at Indoleads.
Some believe that it is more profitable to work directly, without the mediation of a CPA network. This is disputable though. After all, the most important thing in affiliate marketing is time. Are you ready to spend weeks on formalities, waiting for moderation, addressing technical issues – all for the sake of one single affiliate program? And imagine how much time you will have to spend to join several affiliate offers!
By registering in a reputable CPA network, a publisher gets access to thousands of affiliate programs, which they can join in a couple of clicks. More affiliate programs – more sources of income, because sometimes the most converting (that is, the most profitable) are affiliate programs, which you didn’t expect them to be. There may be many reasons for this: the interest of the audience, the popularity of a certain product or service at a certain point in time, the seasonality of the affiliate offer.
How much can I earn?
All depends on your efforts and skills. Making money with affiliate programs means being as flexible as possible in your approaches, not being afraid to test different schemes to find a working one and constantly keeping your finger on the pulse. At Indoleads, some publishers make $120,000+ a month. Many start with a couple hundred dollars a month and gradually work their way up to a full-time office job income. You can make money from affiliate marketing by combining it with your main job. This is a huge advantage of affiliate marketing – you can work from anywhere and anytime.
How to start: step-by-step instructions
So, now let’s see how to make money with affiliate marketing from scratch.
- Creating a website, a blog, and working with other sources of traffic
In order to make money in affiliate marketing, you need an audience, because it’s the audience that will perform the targeted actions. How much a publisher can make depends on the quality and quantity of users. For most publishers, the main source of traffic is their website. Interesting and useful content is necessary, as it will attract new users, which will increase the probability of conversions and generate more income.
A lot of people wonder how to earn with affiliate programs without a website? Although running a website is a condition for some affiliate programs, not all of them make such a requirement. A blog on social networks can just as well generate traffic and become a source of earnings. Also, don’t forget about email marketing and posting on forums or guest blogging.
On some social network platforms, for example, Instagram, there are limited options for posting links. However, there is a way out. Instead of links, bloggers use unique promo codes which similarly to affiliate links are trackable, and enable advertisers to monitor the number of conversions. Working with social networks, you don’t have to pay for the domain and website hosting, that is, the start-up costs are zero. However, given the high competition, a lot of affiliates use targeted advertising, which is paid, and hence, should be carefully considered before pouring big budgets into it.
- Choosing a CPA network
Now that you have an active audience, you can register in a CPA network, of course, if you don’t want to waste your time looking for each affiliate program separately. Take into account a lot of parameters: the rating of CPA network, the number of offers, the competence of the support team. For example, Indoleads was called the best affiliate network in e-commerce, we have over 2000 offers in dozens of categories, and all our publishers work with a personal manager.
- Choosing and joining affiliate programs
Earnings on affiliate programs also depend on the quality of the offer itself. Choose the affiliate programs from the proven advertisers. Think about it like this: would you buy this product/service yourself? Remember, users trust your recommendations. Trust is what affiliate marketing is actually based on. If trust is undermined, you won’t be able to earn money from your audience.
Also, promoted services and products should be relevant to your users. If the audience of your website are women on maternity leave, then auto spare parts are unlikely to be sold well. And no matter how quality these products are, your audience is simply not interested in them.
Joining an offer in a CPA network is a matter of seconds, you just choose an offer, click “join” and get your personal link.
- Promotion of links and traffic arbitrage
The link you get can be placed on any of the available resources: your website, an account in social networks, or forums – these are free sources of traffic. Sometimes they’re enough, and sometimes not, and then another method of generating traffic comes into play – traffic arbitrage.
Arbitrage is buying traffic at a low price and selling it at a high price to earn money on the price difference. For example, contextual advertising such as Google Adwords or targeted advertising on Instagram and Facebook are paid sources of traffic, so you have to pay for the posting of ads. When users see these ads, click on them and perform the targeted actions – an arbitrageur gets paid from an advertiser. The goal is to earn more than you’ve spent on running ads.
Earning money on affiliate programs by buying traffic is absolutely feasible, but this method is suitable for publishers with experience. Here you need to accurately calculate the costs of advertising and possible income from affiliate programs, so as not to go into the red.
- Withdrawal of funds
So, you have earned money, and you want to withdraw it. If you work with a CPA network, you can do it easily: just login to your account and request the withdrawal of funds. All networks have different minimum thresholds for withdrawal. At Indoleads it is $50 for Paypal and $100 for other payment methods, including bank transfers.
Wrapping It Up
Working and earning with affiliate programs is not as difficult as it may seem. Like any business, affiliate marketing requires effort, constant learning and developing of your skills, but the results are worth it. You get a freedom of working without being bound to a 9-5 job or just getting a highly paid side-hustle.
At Indoleads, everyone can find high ticket offers for their audience. Over 3,000 affiliate programs from 180+ countries in the most profitable niches – all on one single platform.