Updated August 2021
Making money online in Affiliate Marketing is a method of producing income familiar to most internet marketers.
If you are looking for an alternative way to earn income, or an additional stream of income, working from home in Affiliate Marketing could be the right thing for you.
However, for many people who have been employed in full-time work and have little spare time to spend on the internet, Affiliate Marketing is often unheard of.
There are probably thousands of people who have no idea it is possible to start a home-based business in Affiliate Marketing. But, it is a fact that many thousands of people are earning income from their own successful Affiliate Marketing business.
If you are looking to increase your income by working online, Affiliate Marketing could be the answer to not only your hopes and dreams but to an easier way of life.
I’ve listed just 6 benefits below and there are sure to be more that would apply to you personally.
Table of Contents
Six Benefits of Making Money Online in Affiliate Marketing
- Working from home in your own business
- Working the hours to suit your lifestyle
- No longer having to answer to someone else
- Provides a full-time or part-time income
- Allows time to expand your interests through your websites
- Gives you the Freedom to earn the level of income you choose, and to enjoy life to the fullest
What You Need to Do to Make Money Online in Affiliate Marketing
The first and most important factor is to have a need to make an income online. In other words, there must be a real desire to increase one’s income, either part-time or full-time. Without such desire or passion, the focus required to be successful as an affiliate marketer could be easily lost.
Working at home in affiliate marketing so as to make a serious income requires dedication and effort by anyone who takes on this challenge.
Please do not misunderstand me. Working in your own affiliate marketing business is definitely a great way to earn income online. You just need to have a strong desire and focus and you will succeed.
With that said, let’s move on and get to the real business of how to earn money working at home in Affiliate Marketing
What Affiliate Marketing Actually Is
If you are working as an affiliate marketer that means that you are promoting other people’s products displayed on their website. The people that own these products are called ‘Vendors‘.
On your own website, you will include affiliate links to that website displaying those products you are promoting. Your role as the promoter of the products is ‘Publisher‘.
When a visitor to your website clicks on your affiliate links and makes a purchase of the products you are promoting, you will receive a commission for that sale.
To Clarify the Roles of Publisher versus Vendor
- the products to be marketed are owned by the Vendor
- the affiliate marketer who is promoting these products is the Publisher
- therefore, in your role of affiliate marketer, you are the Publisher
How the Income is Made
- the Publisher joins an affiliate marketing program to promote the Vendor’s products
- the Publisher has affiliate links on his/her website pointing to the Vendor’s products
- the Vendor pays the Publisher a commission for every sale made when a visitor clicks on an affiliate link pointing to the Vendor’s website, and purchases a product
How Does the Vendor Pay the Purchaser?
- the Vendor is a member of a Company that specializes in managing Affiliate Marketing programs. These companies are usually referred to as a ‘Market Place’.
- all financial transactions are managed by the ‘Market Place’ company that the vendor is registered with.
Affiliate Marketing Programs
There are many affiliate marketing programs available to join. These programs are usually available in a ‘Market Place’ and they provide all the information an affiliate marketer needs to find a suitable product, or products, to promote.
Please note that Affiliate programs are free to join.
Do not pay to become an Affiliate of any program as these would be considered a scam.
How to Promote an Affiliate Program
Before you can search for products to promote you will need to sign up for an account. This is the case with most Affiliate Programs. However, ClickBank, a major marketplace, allows perusal of their Market Place without signing up.
Popular Market Places:
- Clickbank
- Amazon Associates
- CJ.com
- ShareASale
- JVZoo
About These Market Places
ClickBank promotes digital products. These products are produced by the Vendors in the format of e-Books, PDFs, Videos, or a combination of 2 or more of these formats.
Commissions paid for digital products are usually much greater than commissions paid for physical products.
For example, Vendors of digital products often pay up to 75 per cent of the cost of the sale.
Vendors of physical products may pay as low as 4.5 per cent increasing to say 8 per cent depending on the number of sales through the affiliate links.
My Recommendation for a New Affiliate Marketer
When first starting out as an Affiliate Marketer I recommend visiting ClickBank where there is a huge selection of Vendor’s products to be found that are easy to promote.
A Second Recommendation is to Become an Affiliate of the Amazon Associates Program
Commissions paid per sale on Amazon are much lower than the commission paid by ClickBank. However, with the enormous amount of products available to promote on Amazon, there is huge scope for making an income.
It could be said that promoting Amazon is a numbers game. Visitors to your website may click on a link to a particular product in Amazon, make a purchase of what they were interested in, then click on another product totally unrelated to the first product. If they purchase the other product at their original visit, the Affiliate Marketer (Publisher) will receive a commission.
ClickBank and How to Get Started
The following information describes how you can get started as a Publisher (Affiliate Marketer) with ClickBank.
Start by finding a product in a niche that interests you.
1. To search for products that you are interested in promoting as an affiliate:
- Enter https://www.clickbank.com into your web browser, then
- Click on Market Place, as shown in this image below
2. When you are in Market Place you will be able to search products by niche such as ‘healthy diet’ etc. Enter your search into the field beside ‘Find Products’.
3. You can also search in ‘Categories‘ (See the red arrow pointing to the left-hand side of the image).
4. When you click on a Category and open it, a list of different niches within that category will appear.
5. Having found a niche that interests you go to ‘Sort results by:’ and click on the down arrow and open ‘Gravity’.
Still looking at the image above, I recommend that you choose a product with a Gravity of at least 30. The Gravity in the example above is 267.3 but not all products have a Gravity as high as this number.
What Gravity means is: Looking at a Gravity of 30 we know that a minimum of 30 affiliate marketers have at least 1 sale for this product in the period ClickBank is displaying (usually a one month period).
To expand on this explanation: We don’t know how many sales each of the 30 affiliate marketers have made; they may be responsible for multiple sales in this period. But what we do know is 30 affiliates have been responsible for at least 1 sale in the period showing on ClickBank.
6. Now that you have chosen a product to promote it is time to open your affiliate account with ClickBank.
To Open a ClickBank Account:
Go back to Clickbank and click on ‘Create Account’
ClickBank will ask you for a ‘Nickname’ which will also be your Username. I suggest that you use a combination of numerals and letters of the alphabet.
ClickBank will ask you to set up a Password.
The other questions they will ask are usual in setting up an account with any Company.
ClickBank provides a comprehensive Knowledge Base where you can find help where necessary.
7. When your account with ClickBank is set up:
- return to the Category or Niche and the product that you have selected to promote
- click on the ‘PROMOTE‘ button ( see below )
8. This will open to a field where:
- you will enter your Account Nickname (Username)
- then click on the ‘Create’ button
9. Your Hoplink, which is your affiliate link, has been created with encrypted code which will appear where the grey area is in the image below.
Save this hoplink to your computer as you will use it to promote your chosen affiliate products.
I trust that the information in this post is sufficient for you to get started with your desire to earn income at home in affiliate marketing.
For more valuable information on earning income from home check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate to learn about FREE access to the program along with 2 FREE websites and FREE hosting of those 2 sites.
Thank you for your time visiting this website.
If you have any questions about this post or the website, please leave me a comment below. I will respond.
Thanks for the post. You really provided me with great information about ClickBank. I wasn’t familiar with this at all, and it has me thinking in a whole new direction of ways to diversify my products. Your pictures made it easy for me to follow, and I like that you provided information about being able to look what they have available before actually signing up. I don’t want to sign up to a place that has no relevance to me. Great information.
Thank you Marla for your in-depth comment. It’s always great to learn what most helps visitors to my website.
Wishing you success with your online ventures.
Valerie
Wow, this is an in depth article – there’s so much to digest here!
I’ve not had much luck with Amazon affiliates program to be honest, the margins are too small and the competition can be quite high.
I tend to focus on a niche and then look on Google for “xyz affiliate program” to find products to affiliate.
But I also like ClickBank quite a lot I must admit… I’m still learning though so thank you for the great content.
Hi Steve,
Thanks very much for your comment.
I definitely agree about Amazon Affiliate commissions being so low, and the high competition. You will find that as your website matures and traffic increases, the low commissions are not quite so troublesome.
Alternatively, Clickbank commissions are great but, again, success depends on finding the right product to promote from your website plus the number of quality visitors to your site.
Wishing you all the best,
Valerie
Hi Valerie, this was an interesting post. I especially liked your walk through of how to get started with Click bank. Your definition of ‘gravity’ was well done. I have so far stuck with Amazon Affiliates but I might give Click bank another try now on the strength of your explanation!
Thanks.
Hi James,
Thanks very much for visiting this post and leaving your comment. I certainly recommend searching for a suitable product on Clickbank to promote. Due to Clickbank products being digital, commissions are much greater than Amazon Affiliate commissions. In saying that, it’s not always easy to find an appropriate Clickbank product. But, definitely worth the effort.
All the best,
Valerie
Hi Kelen
Thanks so much for leaving a comment.
I’m pleased that you see this information as being helpful for those who are beginning their affiliate marketing venture.
All the best!
Valerie
Thanks Valarie, for the awesome information! So much useful and practical information to help people beginning with affiliate marketing!
Thanks again!