Wake up at dreadful hour and rush out of bed in hopes of beating the rush hour traffic, but get stuck in it anyway.

Show up late to work and receive that all too familiar face of disappointment from your boss as you try to sneak to your desk.

Contemplate getting that second cup of coffee, but decide it’s too early for another cup.

Email after email, task after task, and finally it’s time to go home.

As you walk to your car all you can do is pray you don’t get stuck in the traffic again, except you do.

Sound familiar?

What if you didn’t have to do that? Imagine being able to wake up when you wanted, work where you wanted, and still get paid while you slept? This is the idea behind affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is one of the most popular ways individuals make money online.

Affiliate Marketing

(n) a performance-based marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.

It’s a strategy where an individual works with a business to sell a product. After the sale is made a commission is given to the individual(affiliate).

How Does it Work?

There are three main parties in affiliate marketing: An Advertiser, an Affiliate, and a Consumer. You need all three parties involved for this to work.

1.Advertiser (Merchant): The advertiser, whether a large company or a single individual is a seller, creator of a product or retailer with a product to market. These products can be a type of service or a tangible object.

2.Affiliate (Publisher): An affiliate, also referred to as a publisher can be an individual or a company that markets the products of an advertiser. The affiliate’s job is to persuade a targeted audience to purchase the product. Once the consumer purchases the product the affiliate will then receive a commission by the advertiser.

3.Consumer: The one who buys the product.

How Does an Affiliate Get Paid?

It all depends on the type of promotion the affiliate chooses. There is a CPC, CPL, and PPS model.

1.Cost Per Click (CPC): Payment is received from a click. For this to work, the affiliate needs to move the consumer from the marketing platform to the advertiser’s website using the click of a mouse.

2.Cost Per Lead (CPL): A little more complex than CPC. An affiliate must persuade the consumer to visit the advertiser’s page and complete an action (ex: filling out credit card information).

3.Pay Per Sale (PPS): Once the consumer purchases the product the advertiser will pay a percentage of the sale to the affiliate.

What are Some Examples of Marketing Online?

Display: Banners or ads.

Email: Content sent via email.

Social: Content found on social media. Ex: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat.

SMS: Marketing through mobile devices. Ex: Text messages.

SEO: Content found through Search Engine Optimization ranking.

Native: Using paid ads that look and feel like the media format on which they appear.

Why Become Affiliate Marketers?

Residual Income: Launch a campaign and receive a continuous income throughout the upcoming days.

Low Risk: Most businesses require a startup fee with additional finance fees. But as an affiliate your only expense is the money you invest in your campaign.

Work Anywhere: The ability to work wherever you want.

Flexible: You are the boss. You dictate when you work and for how long.

Performance Based: Affiliate marketing is based on your performance. You get what you put into it and the amount of money you make is limitless.

How to Become an Affiliate?

• The easiest way is to join an affiliate network. An affiliate network will act as the “middleman” between an advertiser and an affiliate. It allows affiliates to easily find offers that are best suited for their type of online traffic. Working with a network also provides a solution for an affiliate to track their performance.

Another perk of working with a network: having an affiliate manager. An affiliate manager is a dedicated resource in supporting an affiliate through their marketing campaign. For more information on affiliate managers click on the link here- Affiliate Management at Revolution Force.

• Alternately, an affiliate can choose to work alone. Instead of getting offers from one place(affiliate network) an affiliate can go to the actual merchant’s site and sign up for an affiliate link directly. This is common for affiliates who want to target a specific niche.

Summary

Affiliate marketing is an excellent solution to becoming your own boss with low financial risk. As an affiliate you are in complete control of your income based on the work you choose to put in. Not to mention you’re able to generate residual income all while working in the comfort of your own home.

Affiliate Marketing = Entrepreneur Lifestyle.

By: Lauren Van Sloten