Whether you are a content creator, influencer, or website owner, affiliate marketing is where to find the money.

By marketing and selling other people’s products through an affiliate network you earn a steady flow of commissions – even when you are asleep.

But, for new affiliates, the most important question is “where do I start?”

Let’s unpack the steps in affiliate marketing and how having easy access to a ready-made affiliate content database can help you.

How to get started with affiliate marketing?

To make money through affiliate marketing, you need to put a significant amount of work into everything from selecting your portals to building traffic and choosing the right products to sell. 

Here is an in-depth two-set guide to becoming a successful affiliate program marketer.

 

Step 1: Build Content

It’s not enough to build a page and slap a few affiliate links onto it. To ensure a sustainable income, you need to consistently create educational or entertaining content that will capture user attention and convert each visitor into an affiliate sale.

Here are some tips on how to create sales-driven affiliate marketing content:

Focus on a Niche

To improve conversion rates and credibility, it’s important to position your blog or website as a trustworthy, go-to site for a particular need. Once you optimize your content for your target audience, not only will you see an influx of more qualified leads and sales but merchants (whose products you wish to sell) will also take your efforts more seriously. Also, regularly publish these content pieces, as businesses that do so receive 126% more lead growth than those that don’t.

 

Build an SEO-friendly Site

 If your content is optimized for SEO keywords, it is more likely to be discovered and accessed by readers. This, in turn, improves your chances of bagging more sales. 

 

Experiment with different platforms

Be sure to reach out to more potential customers by re-purposing your blog or website content on other platforms. For instance, you could promote your long-form blog content or whitepaper via social media sites and email newsletters.

 

Subtly Sell

While it is important to include affiliate links in your blog posts, social media posts, and newsletters, try to avoid overdoing it. Every piece of content does not need to have a product push. But, if a link feels like it fits naturally into the content, then use it.

 

Encourage interactions with your content

To encourage repeat visits to your blog or social media pages, enable two-way communications. If you can give away freebies, run contests and surveys, and seek email feedback, customers will stay more engaged with your content and likely click on your affiliate links more.

 

Step 2: Monetize

The best way to start monetizing your content is by joining affiliate programs that give you exclusive access to special deals and fresh content, from different merchants. 

Think of affiliate networks as the intermediary that facilitates interactions between affiliate marketers and merchants. It helps affiliate marketers easily search for products, track the performance of each campaign and earnings.

Once you are part of an affiliate program, here are the steps to follow to make your first affiliate sale.

 

1. Build an affiliate marketing strategy

Even though affiliate marketing seems intuitive, it’s best not to jump into it without a solid plan in place. For instance, you could start with: 

• Establishing your brand and niche
• Figuring out the demographics and pain points of your audience
• Setting SMART goals for your marketing efforts
• Outlining the tools that you will use to market the products such as product reviews, social media posts, influencers, live webinars, email marketing, PPC advertising, and discounts and deals

 

2. Choose the brands you want to promote

Though you may not always have the luxury of choice when starting, try to become an affiliate for products that you prefer to use. It would also help for the product to be in line with the niche you would like to build. 

Once you find a product that’s the right fit, being familiar with the product or sector can help you communicate its benefits most authentically and believably. 

Note: Be sure to check the network and payment policies of individual products and merchants so that you know what kind of ROI to expect. Also, ensure that the merchant you choose to work with is ethical and has a good reputation so that your readers have a smooth buying experience.

 

 

3. Write a creative post that promotes an affiliate link or offer

Be it product reviews, tutorials, or how-to videos, you should create content that is unique and engaging to your target audience.

Don’t forget to innocuously insert the affiliate link into each unique article so that it will convince your audience to make the purchase. 

Additionally, it would be smart to create lead magnets, such as case studies, whitepapers, and podcasts that collect the email addresses of website visitors. With contact details of potential buyers in hand, you can send targeted content to them directly to promote affiliate products.

 

 

4. Track activity and optimize content

 If your reader completes the purchase, the transaction will be tracked and you receive an affiliate commission for every qualifying purchase.

It always helps to know which piece of content moves the visitor to action so that you can continue to create similar content. If it seems like the traffic or conversion rates are low, you will need to course-correct and optimize your content. 

Making the article introduction punchier, rewording the CTA, improving the SEO of your website, or promoting your post more often in newsletters can make all the difference. 

When harnessed correctly, affiliate marketing analytics can help you more than double your conversion rates.

 

How Can FMTC Help Me Become an Affiliate?

I’m glad you asked! 

Take advantage of our public FMTC Directory which gives you access to over 15,000 stores that are offering commissions to affiliates (like you) to promote their products and services.

We also undertake the tedious job of aggregating thousands of deals from 24 networks and verifying that the deals/codes are cleaned, categorized, and tested. And then, we neatly bundle all this data into a personalized feed, featuring monetized links just for you.

Et voila! Deal publishing becomes so much simpler. With FMTC, your users can find deals that are accurate, current, and competitive. Ultimately, you make more money than ever before.

Have More Questions?

We’re always here to help!

If you’d like more information or have questions about FMTC’s products and services, please email [email protected] at any time.