Nowadays, on every social media platform, whether it is Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, you will see a lot of financial advisors and motivational speakers insisting you earn a passive income online and suggesting different ways to do it.
There are numerous ways to supplement one’s regular paychecks with additional income; some require some investment, while others do not. One of the fastest growing passive income modes these days is affiliate marketing, which is becoming famous among students, housewives, and anyone who wants a side hustle. A lot of people are aware of the term “affiliate marketing.”
They have seen it on YouTube video thumbnails or on other social media platforms but ignored it, thinking it to be a scam or just click-bait. In the below article, we will understand “What is Affiliate Marketing?” And is affiliate marketing a legit way to earn money?
What is Affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a kind of marketing that involves promoting other companies’ products and earning a commission whenever someone buys that product. However, this is generally done by directing a few visitors to your website or blog where you have provided a link to the product. By clicking on that link, customers can purchase the product.
This is one of the best marketing tactics, as there is a win-win situation for both the affiliate and the company: the affiliate makes the commission on the purchase of the product, and the company’s sales increase drastically as multiple affiliates are working to earn some commission.
Some of the companies that offer affiliate products are Clickbank, Amazon, Flipkart, Digistore, and Semrush. Affiliate marketing is not as easy as it seems and requires hard work and patience, but if done right, it can be used to generate a good passive income over time.
There is a lot of confusion in people’s minds regarding affiliate marketing. Let us clear up some of these misconceptions:
Is affiliate marketing a pyramid scheme?
No Affiliate Marketing is not a pyramid scheme.
A pyramid scheme is a business scheme where no real product is sold and is considered to be fraudulent as it involves recruiting members in the business and making a pyramid chain; every new member who is added to the chain has to pay some amount of money as the joining fee and has to further convince more people to join this business scheme and pay the joining fee amount.
These pyramid schemes are frequently unstable businesses that are also prohibited in some countries.
Is affiliate marketing similar to multi-level marketing?
No Affiliate Marketing is not at all similar to multi level Marketing. Multi-level marketing is generally known as MLM or network marketing, which is quite similar to a pyramid selling scheme.
Is affiliate marketing related to influencer marketing?
No, affiliate marketing and influencer marketing are completely different. We have explained affiliate marketing above in the article. Whereas influencer marketing is a new-age marketing technique in which influencers and celebrities simply earn by promoting a product on their Instagram account; generally, these products are from brands, and they charge a huge amount of money in return for the promotion.
These influencers and celebrities have followers in the millions, so if they upload a post on their social media feed promoting the brand product, it gets noticed by millions of people, and thus online advertising of the product is done.
Is affiliate marketing difficult?
Every genuine job that can give you handsome returns will never be easy and won’t promise to make you rich overnight; if it had been so easy, then every third person would be doing it.
Affiliate marketing requires learning, a dedicated amount of work for at least two or three months, and patience and belief. If you go through the affiliate program well, understand it, and promote it to the right audience that is willing to buy it and also have the purchasing power to do so, you will definitely succeed.
Is affiliate marketing only for passive income? Can’t we do it full-time?
There are many people who earn a lot of money through affiliate marketing, up to $5,000 per month; it’s just that they’ve been doing it for years and have figured out how to do it correctly. Some of them are youtubers who have thousands of followers and use youtube to promote affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is not a full-time job; it is a type of business that grows and expands over time and could be one of your online businesses. It is beneficial for you in affiliate marketing if you have other online businesses like blogging, running a YouTube channel, or being an Instagram influencer.
Is affiliate marketing a scam?
Definitely, affiliate marketing is not a scam; otherwise, reputed companies like Amazon and Hostinger would not be running their affiliate partner programs.
But also, a lot of people do not take affiliate marketing seriously and ignore it, considering it to be a fraudulent scheme or scam because there have been multiple incidents where scams have been done and people have been fooled in the name of affiliate marketing.
Even on the YouTube channel, you can find many “click bait” videos in the name of affiliate marketing that promise to teach sky-high income generation techniques, but when you click on the video, there is nothing informative.
Also, many people try to sell their so-called “affiliate marketing courses” in the name of teaching affiliate marketing via YouTube videos, which have resulted in people losing trust in every affiliate marketing video posted on YouTube.
What we are trying to say here is that affiliate marketing itself is not a scam. There are many affiliate programs that are run by big companies, and a lot of people have benefited from them, but there are also a bunch of companies that have deceived people by not paying the commission or by not paying the complete amount they promised, or even by pressuring people to buy their products.
Let us now discuss how affiliate marketing works and the different ways in which we can promote the products using affiliate marketing.
How does affiliate marketing work?
The person who wants to do affiliate marketing for a product will visit the company’s website, for example, Amazon’s, and register himself under the Amazon Affiliate Partner Program. Once the registration is complete, the person will see the list of products he can promote and can generate the affiliate link that is used to promote a particular product.
Now he can promote products through affiliate marketing and earn a fixed amount or a percentage of the sale once the product is purchased via his affiliate link.
Is a website or blog required to do affiliate marketing? If not, what are the ways in which affiliate marketing can be done?
If you have a website or blog of your own, that is the best mode for promoting the affiliated products, but it is not mandatory. Actually, what you require is a landing page where you can provide the affiliate link to buy the product along with some details and the benefits of buying the product.
Let me make it simpler for you to understand. Suppose you have a blog where you provide information about the latest tech products and it receives decent traffic. So now what you can do is provide information about a product on your blog and also mention the affiliate link in the blog to buy that product. If someone would be interested in buying the product, he/she can visit the site and purchase the product, and you will receive your commission as the person has visited via your affiliate link.
However, if you do not have a website or blog, you must create a landing page and direct traffic to it. On this landing page, you will provide the affiliate link to buy the product. One more thing here: no one will buy the product if you simply provide the affiliate link; you must mention the advantages of the product so that the customer is convinced. Unbounce is one of many websites that can assist you in creating a landing page.
How to Use Instagram for Affiliate Marketing
If you have a good number of followers on Instagram, affiliate marketing can be very easy for you. If not, change your personal account into a business account. Now choose a company whose product you want to promote and make sure that the product niche matches with the type of content you create. For example, if you have an account related to technology, you should promote tech products like smart watches, smart phones, etc.
Once you have decided which product to promote, you can do so via your stories, feed, or posts by providing a link in your stories or your bio. Also, do mention that this is an affiliate link, and you would be earning a small commission under the affiliate partner program.
To sum up, we can say that affiliate marketing is a legit marketing technique that can be used as a passive income source. One needs to work dedicatedly for 3–4 hours a week at least for two or three months to reap its benefits.
If you do it correctly, you will undoubtedly see your income multiply several times within a year. Some of the reputed companies that offer an affiliate partner programs are Amazon, Hostinger, Flipkart, Semrush, ClickBank, etc. One can simply create an account on this platform and start their affiliate marketing journey.
FAQ’s
Is affiliate marketing legal?
Yes, affiliate marketing is legal in every part of the world, and a lot of people are earning money using affiliate partner programs.
Is affiliate marketing worth it?
Yes, affiliate marketing helps you earn a passive income. There are a lot of people who have been doing affiliate marketing for the last 2–3 years and are earning from 500 to 1000 dollars per month.
Is affiliate marketing easy?
Anything that can help you earn a decent amount of money every month can never be easy. Affiliate marketing requires learning, working with dedication for at least two or three months, patience, and belief.
If you go through the affiliate programs well, understand it, and promote it to the right audience that is willing to buy it and also have the purchasing power to do so, you will definitely succeed.