How Affiliate Programs Work

Affiliate programs are a nice way to earn money online even if you don’t have a product or service of your own to offer.

Affiliate programs work by online merchants allowing third party marketers to promote their products and services for a commission. Merchants embrace this model since they only pay commissions after a sale is made making it a true performance marketing model. To them, it’s like having a outside sales force that they only pay once they get paid first.

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What Are Affiliate Programs?

Affiliate programs allow people like you and me to earn money by referring buyers to online merchant web sites.

The affiliate marketer, which is you or me, acts as a middleman that sends the buyer to the merchant website where the transaction takes place. Then, the merchant pays an affiliate commission to you or me based on the terms of each individual affiliate program agreement. 

The 3 parties that participate in the affiliate program are:

  1. You the affiliate
  2. The online buyer
  3. The merchant website that operates the affiliate program

Affiliate Marketing Definition

I’ve seen many definitions of affiliate marketing put forth including ‘a marketing arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.’*

Or affiliate marketing is ‘the art of doing a merchant’s marketing better than they can, and profiting from it.’ – Chris Sanderson.

My way of explaining it is that affiliate marketing is an internet marketing model that allows you to earn commissions by promoting other companies (or people’s) products or services. When a sale is made, the product or service owner delivers the order to the buyer then pays you a percentage of the profits.

What makes affiliate marketing so attractive is that:

  • You don’t have to create your own products or services
  • You never have buy or store inventory
  • You do not ship or deliver any goods
  • You don’t perform customer service

Affiliate marketing is your ticket to a home-based business that gives you the opportunity to earn unlimited income. 

Affiliate Marketing Playerswhat is an affiliate program image

Affiliate marketing involves 4 primary players:

1. The company that provides the product or service
2. The affiliate network that lists offers and pays commissions from the company (merchant) to each individual affiliate marketer. (although some company’s provide this service internally on their own platform).
3. The affiliate marketer who publishes content and makes offers to third parties
4. The customer who ultimately buys the product or service

Affiliate marketing can pay affiliates using several different models:

– Pay Per Sale (PPS) – What we focus on primarily here at High Paying Affiliate Programs.
– Pay Per Click (PPC)
– Pay Per Lead (PPL)
– Pay Per Impression (PPM)
– Pay Per Action (PPA)
– Pay Per Order (PPO)
– Revenue Sharing Model

Affiliate Marketing Models

There are many ways to earn income as an affiliate marketer.

Publishing: Most affiliate marketers are involved to some degree in online publishing – a website, blog, newsletter, directory, ezine, review site, or email marketing.   Affiliate marketers place links or ads on their sites that promote a product or service and are rewarded when a visitor clicks on those links and buys at the company’s home site.

Sales and conversions are generally tracked when you (the publisher) use a link with a unique code provided by the affiliate network or company that enables the advertiser to track where the conversions come from (usually with cookies).  If you don’t know what cookies are don’t worry since you’ll have plenty of time to learn the technical aspects of how this all works later on.

Email Marketing: Selling through email is one of the most cost effective and lucrative models in internet marketing.

Video Marketing: The explosion of social media video platforms has made video marketing a great choice if you prefer making videos to writing and publishing

Affiliate Marketing Without A Website: You don’t have to have a website or even use social media to make money online these days.

Affiliate marketing is similar to referral marketing since though both refer third party sales to merchants.  However, affiliate marketing relies more on financial motivations as well as trust and personal relationships to drive sales.  Are you ready to get started with affiliate marketing?  Click Here Now.

Still Not Clear?

Let’s dig deeper…

How Much Money Can You Make As An Affiliate?

There is literally no cap on the amount of money you can make as an affiliate marketer. The sky is the limit.

I know affiliate marketers who work just a couple hours a week who treat it like a side gig to pay a few bills. Others are dedicated professionals who work as an affiliate full time and make millions of dollars every year.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn income from home and grow it into a sustainable small business. And if traveling is what is an affiliate program bank vault imageyour thing, affiliate marketing gives you the means to work from anywhere on the planet that has internet service. With a laptop and an internet connection, you can literally work from the beach.

Reasons Why You Should Start Affiliate Marketing Today:

  • Affiliate marketing allows you to earn a steady income each and every month in the area of your interests or expertise. You can make money in a nearly endless number of niches and markets
  • You can work comfortably from home, on your own terms, or anywhere you can get internet access. Since you are the boss you can work whenever you want and on the projects of your own choosing. You call the shots
  • Affiliate marketers earn a commission for selling somebody else’s product or service. You don’t have to do any product fulfillment, customer service, billing, or product creation because the product owner does all of those tasks for you
  • The playing field on the internet is still level so a beginner can directly compete with, and often beat out, larger companies. In fact, being a small player in affiliate marketing has more advantages than disadvantages
  • Once you start making money, you will earn commissions even when you’re not working. The automated systems you’ll set up can earn you income 24/7/365
  • You get to choose which companies and partners to work with and there are hundreds of affiliate programs and networks for you to choose from. They all offer different products, tools and payouts. This gives you unlimited flexibility in how you run your own online business
  • You can, and should, outsource much of the work involved in affiliate marketing. This gives you more freedom to spend all of that money you’re making
  • The affiliate marketing business model is surprisingly easy to scale. Once you find your winning formulas of products and promotions, you can expand your reach and income very quickly
  • Affiliate marketing automation tools will help you handle most of the heavy lifting in this business – making your job easier
  • It takes a surprisingly small amount of money to get started in affiliate marketing.
  • Affiliate marketing is still in it’s relative infancy. eCommerce as a whole is expected to grow into a $335+ billion dollar industry by the year 2020. That a huge pie and there is plenty of room for you to take your piece
  • You don’t need to be a product creator to make money in affiliate marketing. But if you do decide to make your own product or service you can make even larger profits and recruit other affiliates to help you grow your business
  • Affiliate marketing is really fun and you will meet other like-minded people who you can partner with if you choose. This business model encourages cooperation and a cool entrepreneurial spirit that drives all of us

How Much Money Can You Make With Affiliate Marketing?

There is literally no cap on the amount of money you can earn through affiliate marketing. You can work a few hours a week part-time to make money to supplement your current income, or you can work full-time to bring home an unlimited amount of earnings. It’s your call.

Since affiliate marketing is an easily scalable business, you can start small and slowly build up your online traffic, sales and income to the level that works best for you.

Getting Started As An Affiliate Marketer

I have put together a free guide that will show you step-by-step how to get started in this business. It takes very little money and no experience to start:

Affiliate Disclosure
Disclosure: The operator of this website is a 3rd party marketer with a material connection to product/service providers appearing on this site in that we are compensated for sales made through our affiliate links.

If you have any questions please contact me bill@highpayingaffiliateprograms.com