Start Affiliate Marketing and Make Money

When you hear the term "Affiliate Marketing", what do you think of first? Passive income and easy money? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Because even though affiliate marketing sounds like making passive money, there's a lot of work involved. And that's BEFORE you actually make money with affiliate marketing. Why?

Quite clearly, first and foremost you need an audience. A so-called reach. If you don't have this, you don't have any potential customers who can buy via your affiliate links. And if you don't have potential customers, you can't receive commissions.

But how can you start affiliate marketing and make money?

We'll explain that in this article. Here it's all about affiliate marketing for beginners, what you need for it and above all how to start with affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a sub-area of Online marketing and is based on commission-driven income through recommendations. Often it's product recommendations that the affiliate publisher give to their audience. What does that mean exactly?

Suppose you have a website, a blog or a social media channel for a specific topic, then you can introduce and recommend products that match your topic via these channels. You not only present these products, but also link to an online shop where your website visitors or social media followers can buy the recommended products.

A tracking code that is only assigned to you is integrated in this referral link (also known as an affiliate link). Through this tracking code, the operators of the online shop can determine which customers have come through you and how many of them have bought something in the shop.

How such a purchase is remunerated for you is determined in advance. After all, there are different attribution and remuneration models in Affiliate marketing (commission on click, on completed action or on purchase).

If you want to delve deeper into the topic of affiliate marketing, be sure to read our detailed Affiliate Marketing guide.

What do you need for Affiliate Marketing?

Before you can start affiliate marketing and make money from it, you need three things in particular:

1. an Affiliate Marketing Strategy
2. a Website
3. a large reach

What do we mean by Affiliate Marketing Strategy? You should be clear about which topic you want to start with affiliate marketing on. If you offer a multitude of different topics, it will be difficult to build an interested target group. In addition, your product recommendations will no longer appear authentic and honest. So it's better to dance at only one wedding. In addition, it is advisable to check in advance whether there is a demand for your preferred topic. If there isn't, you can't build up a reach for it. Niche topics are often particularly suitable here, as there is significantly less competition and building up a reach is much easier.

Once you've chosen a highly sought-after (niche) topic, it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty. After all, you need content explaining and portraying your topic and later inserting affiliate links. This is best done with a website / a blog. With the help of the content on your niche pages, you show your readers that you are familiar with the topic and have already gained experience. This gives you credibility when you give product recommendations.

A website or blog is also necessary to achieve the third point: Build reach. However, make sure that you also design your website or blog content to be search engine optimized. This allows you to become visible on Google and gain new visitors to your website / blog. It's also very sensible to familiarize yourself with Search Engine Optimization and to write SEO texts. You can also build up your reach via a Social Media channel (e.g. Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn) or via an Email marketing list. However, we recommend that you do this in addition to building a website / a blog.

For the following three reasons:

1. You can't always put a clickable link on your social media profiles (which you need for your affiliate link).
2. The goal of social media platforms is to keep users on the platform for as long as possible - with outgoing links you do the exact opposite.
3. In order to get users onto your email list for free, you also need a website or blog - otherwise a budget for ad campaigns is necessary.

That's quite a lot of work before you can start affiliate marketing, right? If you're still unsure whether affiliate marketing is really right for you, then you should let the Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing go through your head thoroughly.

But if you're sure that you want to start with affiliate marketing, then we'll gladly show you how and where to best start.

Start Affiliate Marketing in 7 Steps

We've already gone into the first three basic points in more detail, so they're only briefly listed here as bullet points:

Step 1: Find (niche) topic

Step 2: Create and build a website / blog

Step 3: Continually build reach

Now come the really exciting steps for beginning your affiliate marketing.

These steps are necessary for affiliate marketing (Image Source: Projecter.de)

Step 4: Find Relevant Affiliate Products

As soon as you've created content and gained reach, you can find relevant affiliate products. And by relevant we mean products that match both your topic and your target group. It doesn't offer your readers any added value if you write about yoga and meditation in your website content, for example, but then link to expensive cameras on Amazon via affiliate links.

Not only does it not add any value, it also looks incredible and out of context, and in the worst case scenario can worsen your hard-earned image. In addition, the probability that users will buy the expensive camera through the link is significantly lower than if the affiliate link were to lead to a high-quality yoga mat.

Ideally, you should recommend products that you've already used or tested and found good. This gives you the greatest expertise on the product, and you can provide your target group with the best content on it and answer their open questions.

Step 5: Find the Right Affiliate Marketing Providers

Once you’ve found suitable products for your website visitors, the next step is to find the right affiliate marketing providers for you and to register with their affiliate programs. Only then will you be able to monetize your product recommendations.

When choosing an affiliate marketing provider, it's worthwhile to check certain points and compare them with other providers. Here are a few examples:

• What remuneration model is applied?
• How much is your commission?
• Are they one-off or recurring commissions?
• How often are commissions paid out?
• What are commissions paid out over?
• What advertising material does the affiliate marketing provider provide?
• How long is the cookie runtime of the affiliate program?

Step 6: Integrate Affiliate Links or Affiliate Banners on Website

The next step is to integrate the advertising materials into your website content. These can be simple affiliate links that you integrate into your texts. But it could also be that your affiliate marketing provider provides product-specific advertising banners. As these consist of images or videos, they attract more attention. On the other hand, they look nicer than text links.

When using your affiliate products, make sure to insert them legally. You're legally obliged, for example, to label affiliate links as such. Changes may also be necessary in your privacy policy. Make sure you're well informed so that you're on the safe side.

Step 7: Promote Website Content

Once you've inserted your recommended products via affiliate link or advertising banner into your website content, you can start promoting them. Write further SEO articles including affiliate links and share them in your social media posts or in your regular newsletter. The more people know about your content, the more people can shop through your affiliate links.

In our article "Five tips to boost the performance of your affiliate program" we give you more tips on how you can sustainably increase your affiliate income.

Our Best Affiliate Marketing Providers

So that you have a small selection of suitable affiliate marketing providers and can start your affiliate marketing quicker, here’s a small list of our Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Providers. When you click on an affiliate provider, you land on the program on our OMR Reviews platform. There you'll find further information on the affiliate program as well as real customer experiences and customer ratings.

Webgains

ADCELL

Awin

TradeTracker

lead alliance

100partnerprogramme.de

financeAds

retailAds

Digistore24

CJ

If these providers aren't enough for you, you'll find more alternatives to these affiliate marketing programs in the Affiliate Network Programs category on OMR Reviews.