But what I really love about the CJ Affiliate network is their metrics – I can clearly see if an affiliate program is profitable or not.
Let’s look at an example. Say I sign up for and get accepted into the Pit Boss Affiliate Program. I go to the Pit Boss affiliate portal and they give me unique links (for grills, pellets, etc) that I can use on my blog. I post a recipe using my Pit Boss on my blog and include an affiliate link to the grill I used in various places on my post. Thank link goes to the product page of the grill I used. Someone reads my blog post and decides they want the same grill I have so they click my affiliate link and it takes them to that grill on the Pit Boss site. They purchase that grill. I get a commission on that sale because I assisted in that sale. I have a full time job that I’m not ready to leave. So I use affiliate marketing as a supplement to my income. It’s my side hustle. Sometimes it’ll take care of my gas money for the month and sometimes it’ll take care of the mortgage and my car note too. I’m not at the point where I’m making six (or even five) figures yet. But a LOT of people use affiliate marketing as their full time job and sole source of income and I believe it. Maybe one day I’ll be at that point but until then, it’ll remain a fun side hustle.
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You see, the different players who make up this marketing model engage with it differently.
Basically, it’s a modern interpretation of a very old idea — getting a commission on a sale.
That’s because people are much more likely to open an email from you and take action, if the email in question is truly relevant to them.
I can still remember very well the feeling of excitement when I made my first affiliate marketing sale. It was January 14th, two and a half months into my blogging journey, and after weeks of no commission, I made my first $1.30 with Amazon.
Yes, it works really well if done the right way. It takes some time if you start it with no money.
But in this post you’ll get a pretty good sense of the earning potential from different types of promotions.
If you’re already interested, I guarantee you that if you finish the post, you’ll have at least the basic knowledge to be an affiliate marketer 😉
You can start an LLC yourself and pay only the minimal state LLC costs or hire one of the Best LLC Services for a small, additional fee.
Accompany your affiliate link with an image of the product or brand promoted. Research by Buffer stated that tweets with images influence 18% more clicks, 89% more likes, and 150% more retweets than text-only tweets. In other words , using images leads to increased engagement and further promotion.
Because when you eventually become an authority figure in your niche by offering great value to your audience (as we've already discussed) people will trust you and buy the product you recommend.
What we would like to mention is comparison posts have low competition and high buyer intent. Because of the low search volume, you might avoid these categories for not using them very often.
In other words, if you don’t actually know what you’re talking about, prepared to be called out. That being said, if you are a gamer, there is a huge potential as an affiliate marketer.
During the application process for each affiliate program, you will need to fill in information about your website, traffic, niche, and target audience.
When an affiliate link is clicked, a small file called a cookie is stored on the users computer. Then they buy a product, the merchant can see that they were referred by you.
What are you passionate about? What do you, yourself, buy? That's a great place to start!