Affiliate Programs: Myths and Truths

The vast majority of those who create a blog or a website seek to earn something. The most common benefit is financial. But if you don't have products or services to offer, or if you do have them but don't generate enough sales, how can you achieve it? That's where affiliate marketing comes in, a way to earn passive income online. Want to know how to make money online with affiliate programs? Then keep reading, as we will tell you the myths and truths of this system.

What are affiliate programs?

The operation is very simple. If you have a blog or a page, you can promote third-party products or services on it that will give you a commission for each sale that comes from your website. It's a win-win situation, as you profit by selling products that are not yours, and the one who actually markets them reaches a much larger potential audience thanks to you, thus amplifying their conversion rate.

In reality, it’s like becoming a salesperson for a store or a brand. The more sales you achieve, the greater your reward will be. In this type of marketing, there are generally four parties involved:

1. The person or company that launches an affiliate program.
2. Anyone who joins that program and thus becomes an affiliate.
3. The end customers, who buy from the original seller or the affiliate will pay the same for the product or service.
4. A possible intermediary network between anyone offering the affiliation and those who sign up for it. They usually manage payments to the affiliates. Awin, Clickbank, and Tradedoubler are three of the most popular.

How can I become an affiliate?

Affiliate programs are free, with rare exceptions, and all you need to do is register on one of the numerous platforms that host offers from merchants or distributors.

Depending on each case, certain conditions may be required to be approved as an affiliate, or your application may need to be evaluated and take a few days to receive a response. Carefully examine the program's conditions before signing up to choose the one that suits you best and avoid surprises.

Once your affiliate account is greenlit, it's time to carry out the campaigns or actions you deem necessary to promote as many sales as possible of those products.

It should be noted that the goal of affiliate programs may not always be to generate sales. The CPA (Cost Per Action) may be for driving traffic or capturing leads, for example. In those cases, we can earn money for the clicks that our page registers to the seller's page, for the number of subscriber sign-ups, or even for ad impressions.

What should I do to sell as an affiliate?

Affiliate programs provide you with unique keys that identify you. These unique codes are included in all the links of the products or services you are going to promote. This way, when someone clicks on them, they are redirected from your website to the merchant's.

If the sale is ultimately made within a certain period of time, that identifier records that it occurred thanks to you. Then the commission -which generally ranges from 5% to 15% of the product price- is added to your balance.

When you reach a certain amount, you will be able to withdraw those funds. Some affiliate programs reserve the right to terminate your account if you do not meet minimum sales within the stipulated time frames.

Logically, your interest is in developing strategies that maximize the sales of those products. Depending on the theme or sector, it is normal to create content related to those areas. You should try to position your blog or website for the dominant keywords in that niche and attract as much traffic as possible interested in purchasing the offered products.

So, can I make a living as an affiliate?

Don't be fooled by what you might read in countless articles about affiliate programs. Or by what they want to sell you in ebooks or manuals.

Can you make money? Yes, of course. Many people earn a little extra money each month, some live off it, but most, despite their varying degrees of dedication, barely see a penny and throw in the towel after a while. This last point answers the next question: Is it easy? No, not at all.

To generate sales, you will need to create useful content, of value, and position it to attract traffic. That is a rough summary and it is achieved through work; there are no magic formulas. Don't think that just having a nice website and placing a series of products on it, no matter how attractive they are, will lead to sales like hotcakes.

Moreover, competition is increasing every day, and what were once untapped microniches today are true oases in the desert. It is normal that you will have to fight to appear in the top positions of organic searches to have enough traffic volume to generate sales.

What strategies can I use to generate sales?

Exactly the same ones you would use to market items that were yours. The primary thing is that you know in depth what you want to sell. Your website should become a reference in that sector. Only by building a strong brand image, specialized in the sector, will you achieve regular conversions over time.

You can build your credibility in many diverse ways:

• Writing articles on a blog or reviews about the products where you break down their features, strengths, and weaknesses.
• Making comparisons between similar items from different manufacturers, something that usually sparks a lot of interest from potential buyers.
• Recording and publishing demonstration videos on YouTube, showing on camera how the products work or showcasing their features.
• Promoting the products on landing pages, ads, forums, social networks, newsletters…

The options are many and varied, and not everything has been written yet. Be creative; anything you can think of to reach the maximum number of people will work in your favor. Additionally, almost all affiliate programs offer tracking panels. Remember the crucial importance of analyzing your metrics to evaluate the impact of each of your actions.

Ecommerce giants are making it easier

The rise of affiliate marketing is leading numerous companies, especially ecommerce giants, to create plugins or applications that make the affiliate's task as easy as possible, whether by automating links or offering pre-designed ads.

For example, Amazon -which conceived affiliate programs in 1996- launched its first specific plugin for WordPress last December, a platform where numerous blogs act as, to put it simply, "fake" online stores that refer to products marketed by Jeff Bezos's empire. This application allows you to include any Amazon item in a blog/store without leaving the WordPress management panel.

The Chinese portal Aliexpress, another prominent name in global ecommerce, also provides useful and simple tools for affiliates.

After all, they are the first interested parties. Keep in mind that they are recruiting an entire army of "evangelists" for their brand and their products for sale.

If we think about it, the philosophy of affiliate programs is not exclusive to ecommerce. Not to mention, the advertising of Adsense. The main source of passive income for most websites is still an affiliate platform. What you "sell" on your page is third-party advertising contracted through Google for which you earn a commission. Identical concept.

And you, have you ever tried affiliate programs? How does it work for you? Did you know that we have one? We offer 10% of all deposits made by a registered user with your affiliate link. Are you in?