Affiliate marketing is an online system that requires website owners to market products on behalf of the seller for a commission. It is one of the lucrative investments that one can undertake when you have a well-established online platform; social media, websites, and blog posts. But is affiliate marketing a pyramid?
Affiliate marketing requires one to have an established platform that attracts a certain traffic threshold. Pyramid schemes benefit the top-tier members of the scheme or those who engineered it. Affiliate marketing is legitimate online work, although it also is prone to scams
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a system whereby an online retailer arranges to market its products or services with an external website and pays the website commission based on sales or on the number of people who view the product. It is one of the most lucrative ways to earn passive income online.
Is affiliate marketing a pyramid?
Affiliate marketing is not a pyramid scheme because it is commission-based work. Although the affiliate gets paid by pulling in customers or viewers, the system is not prone to scams. Pyramid schemes are systems that have been put in place to benefit the top-tier members of the scheme. The beneficiaries are usually the people who engineered the scheme. The means by which they get income is by getting new members to join the referral system at a fee. They will usually get a percentage for every member that joins and pays the fee.
Is there actually money in affiliate marketing?
There is a lot of money to be earned in affiliate marketing. It is estimated that in the U.S alone, affiliate marketing spending is projected to reach more than 8.0 billion USD by the end of 2022. The bigger the brand being marketed, the more one stands to earn from working from them. People with websites that attract a lot of traffic will find affiliate marketing a very lucrative way to earn.
One of the highest-earning affiliate marketers is Pat Flynn, who made $8,000 in his first 18 months as an affiliate marketer. Another popular affiliate marketer and influencer are Jeremy Shoemaker, who has managed to earn more than $4 million. Roby Blanchard is the number one affiliate in the world and is famed for making more than 26 million USD in the industry.
How do affiliate marketers get paid?
The affiliate marketing system is very efficient. It can be described through the below step-by-step procedure:
- Affiliate signs up for a certain affiliate program.
- They are given links and banners for the product to place on their website.
- A customer clicks on the link, which leads them to the product website.
- The tracking link records the customer purchases in the online store.
- The affiliate network records the purchase and the details.
- The transaction is credited to the retailer.
- The affiliate gets paid their commission as agreed.
Can you really make money with affiliate marketing?
It is not easy to make money as an affiliate marketer since it requires websites to attract a lot of traffic to make good money as affiliate marketers. One will have to put in a lot of work to set up a good affiliate marketing system. Only the best will actually make money through affiliate marketing. It also takes time to build this system, so one must be very patient. The higher the traffic to a website, the higher the possibility the marketer will make more money.
How to start affiliate marketing
You can use different platforms to launch your affiliate marketing career. One can use their own website, a blog, or social media pages.
Here is how you can start affiliate marketing step by step:
- Choose a platform on which to start affiliate marketing.
- Choose the niche which will suit you.
- Research the affiliate programs you can join within this niche.
- Choose the affiliate program that will suit your needs.
- Create great content on your platform, which will drive traffic there.
- Clicks will be converted to sales, and you will earn your commissions.
There are many affiliate programs worldwide, with the most popular being the Amazon affiliate program, the Alibaba Affiliate program, and Bluehost.
How long does it take to make money on affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketer needs to put in a lot of work, especially in content creation. Most expert affiliate marketers agree that it takes at least a year to 18 months to get the income flowing. By this time, you can hope to make a thousand dollars per month and above. However, if one already has an established channel and many followers, raking in sales through affiliate marketing may take a shorter time.
Can affiliate marketing be trusted?
You can only trust affiliate marketing programs from sites that have been proven. This is why conducting the proper research before choosing which site to enroll as an affiliate is important. Inevitably, there are fraudulent sites where people are never paid for affiliate marketing.
Some others may be Phishing systems to obtain contacts, website links, and other important details for other cyber-crimes. Getting reviews from people who are already earning on a site is a good way to know if it is genuine. As mentioned above, one can also choose to stick to the most trusted and popular affiliate sites.
Are affiliate links legal?
Affiliate links can be legal or illegal, depending on their site. Some platforms will prohibit users from posting affiliate links or require them to follow certain rules. Affiliate links should be declared and fully marked as so. Furthermore, one must follow the regulations of the affiliate site, especially when it comes to the use of links.
One may not be allowed to use their own affiliate links to buy personal items. For instance, on Amazon affiliates, if you send links via email, hide or cloak or shorten your affiliate link, or use more than one affiliate account, you will be banned.
Is affiliate marketing the same as MLM?
While Multilevel marketing relies on signing up more people on your streamline, affiliate marketing depends on sales commissions. Most MLM programs do not necessarily depend on people buying the commodity as they do on them joining the system. Thus, in MLM, the more people you convince to join your network, the more you earn.
You will normally be required to pay a certain fee to join the MLM network. In the MLM model, everyone is a retailer, and commissions are shared up the hierarchical network. However, in affiliate marketing, the model is simple and straightforward, with commissions being earned only by the affiliate.
Is affiliate marketing a good side hustle?
Affiliate marketing is a perfect side hustle, especially for people with no extra work time. Interestingly, one will just have to work hard to set the ball rolling as it was. For instance, if you set up the platform and put up the ads, the commissions will keep coming in monthly. This is the most popular way to generate passive income.
Affiliate marketing is a successful way for both the retailer and the affiliate to make money. Online businesses greatly benefit from affiliate marketing. People who are looking to grow their businesses and attract more customers can use affiliate marketing to popularize their products.
Some popular platforms for affiliate links may be Google blogs, websites, and social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. It is estimated that 80% of popular brands have affiliate programs. This not only drives sales but also creates employment for millions of people. As long as one is a content creator online, one can embark on the journey of becoming an affiliate.
