What A Beginner Must Know About The Upsides and Downsides of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has advantages and disadvantages, just like every other business model. So, what’s the essence of affiliate marketing?
The essence of affiliate marketing is best understood with an example.
Let’s say a friend tells you he’s trying to sell his laptop but hasn’t been able to find a buyer. You run into someone searching for a laptop similar to the one your friend has for sale a few days later.
Now you link your friend with the prospective buyer, and so the deal is done.
In return, your friend gives you a share of the sale proceeds, as a token of good faith and loyalty. And, more importantly, because you were willing to do something that your friend couldn’t.
In a nutshell, what just happened is affiliate marketing.
Essentially,you advertise a company’s services or goods and are paid a commission, if a sale is made.
As per known stats, percentage commissions are most common in affiliate programs.
The average affiliate commission is between 5–30%.
From the beginner, to the seasoned internet entrepreneur, this is the fastest, and simplest way to make money online. But it isn’t just smooth sailing all the way to the top.
So if you’re a beginner let’s look at some upsides and downsides of affiliate marketing.
Downsides of Affiliate Marketing
The most significant drawback of affiliate marketing is that you have no influence over the process. A company can kick you out of its affiliate programme at any time, for any cause. Justified or not.
This is why having your own blog or website, and preferably your own product, is important.
There’s no denying that affiliate marketing will help you make a lot of money.
However, we need to always remember that someone else will still have the final say.
About how you do it.
Whether you get paid.
What you get paid.
And whether or not you should be their affiliate.
It Takes Time To Establish Yourself
Despite what many “experts” would have you believe, being a good affiliate marketer takes time.
Too many people get into affiliate marketing because they’ve lost their job, and so they need to make money quickly.
This makes me wince every time I see it.
My advice is if you need money quickly, affiliate marketing is not the way to go. Remember, affiliate marketing is a strategic plan for the long term.
Usually, it takes about one to three years to start a real income from affiliate marketing.
And that’s assuming you work on the project almost every day.
It takes time to build a following, get rated in Google search, gain reader interest, and find attractive affiliate partnerships.
As a result, the majority of active affiliate marketers usually start their affiliate marketing businesses as a side hustle.
This can be difficult if you already have a lot of duties and obligations on hand.
But you can find success online if you’re working on your site every single day and stick with it for the long haul.
Unpredictable Income
Paychecks , in affiliate marketing, can be extremely variable. Some affiliate programmes can take a long time to pay you.
For instance, if you sell goods as an Amazon affiliate, you will be paid every 30 days for the previous 30 days’ sales. Obviously this is not a good programme for you, if you’re someone who can’t wait 60 days to get paid.
However, unlike Amazon, many other businesses and consumers pay right away after a sale. That actually depends on the company.
In the debate about the upsides and downsides of affiliate marketing, one disadvantage is that you can probably end up doing business with a company that refuses to pay you.
However, this should not be an issue if you stick to reputed and credible affiliate networks.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of cases of bad paymasters online. Repeatedly, affiliates have gone through the unpleasant experience of not getting paid enough, or even at all, in a few exceptional cases.
That’s why, before becoming an associate, you should do a lot of research, because your long term success is at stake.
All Affiliate Programs Aren’t Always Alike
Often after you apply,in the selection process, certain affiliate marketing companies bring you through the meat grinder. This is undeniably a disadvantage.
Others may regard you as a “miracle cures salesman.” But be cautious about promoting “just about everything”.
Don’t forget the basic part. Finally it’s your name on the line mostly.
So the sensible thing is to represent trustworthy products and businesses that provide excellent value.
How do you ensure that?
Simply put the consumer first.
Besides this, the affiliate (that is you) are in charge of driving traffic to the product sales pages.
Essentially, you’re in charge of attracting clients. And your prime responsibility is to build traffic.
And if you can’t get enough people to see your affiliate bid, you’re not going to make a lot of money. Period.
On top of that, it is also entirely your job to create and deliver high value content to your prospective consumers and audience.
Upsides Of Affiliate Marketing
Going through the downsides is pretty discouraging, I admit.
But its not all that bad really.
In fact, it is rather too good!
Let’s look at the benefits of becoming an affiliate, now that we’ve roughed ourselves up over the drawbacks of affiliate marketing.
Fact is, frankly, if you weren’t aware of the promise, and huge success in affiliate marketing , you wouldn’t even be reading this article.
To begin with, affiliate marketing is the quickest way to launch an online company.
To get started, you don’t even need an item or brand. That means you might be literally earning money as an affiliate marketer within days, or even hours of reading this post!
Sounds incredible?
But it’s happened before. And make no mistake, this will happen in the future too.
And how’s that even possible?
Here’s the deal..
The biggest advantage in this system is that you’re actually free from the huge ordeal of customer support, logistics, or product delivery.
What you’re simply required to do is find potential customers.
And then, focus on how you can become a great affiliate marketer .
That’s just the thing required for long term success.
The Surprising Cost of Starting Affiliate Marketing
You can get going with literally no money at all.
How’s that even possible?
It’s possible simply because of the internet’s global scope.
You only need online communities, blogs, forums, videos, and social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram , and Pinterest to advertise your products and services.
I’m repeating myself. But it’s important…
As an affiliate who promotes the goods and services of another individual or organisation, you don’t have to deal with any issues of customer service.
You merely direct people to websites, that reward you with a fee.
And the best part?
The owners of those websites are the guys actually responsible for selling, bringing the product to the doorsteps of clients, and providing after-sales support. You’re free from ALL of that.
Eases your job description . Doesn’t it?
Affiliate Marketing Is A Pay-For-Performance Model.
Affiliates companies are more likely to push the conversion you’re looking for.
Guess why?
Because they’re just paying a fee after the desired action has occurred.So you are rewarded for your performance.
The primary benefit of providing an affiliate programme is that it is solely dependent on success. Affiliates are more driven because they’re paid commissions, and rewarded directly for their success.
Here are two big advantages for you in this reward system:-
1.Affiliate marketing eliminates irrelevant traffic-generating activities which aren’t required for your business,
2.It also ensures that you get what you pay for.
Affiliate Marketing Is Something That Anybody Can Do.
One striking feature of affiliate marketing is its level playing field.
It makes no difference if you’re a male or a woman, how old you are, how much you know about Internet marketing.
Or anything else.
The internet doesn’t actually care about who you are. When you understand how to use the affiliate marketing model correctly, it will pay you back.
That’s a given. And this reward system fairly applies to all good performers.
You can start your affiliate marketing business part-time and operate it for a few hours every week to make money.
You can sell millions of services and products.
And earn that much money too.
Just find one product that you’re impassioned about, something that has the potential to transform people’s lives in some way.
And you’ll be well on the way to generating money, while assisting others with their difficulties.
Affiliate Marketing Helps You Grow Your Traffic And Sales Quickly.
The more sites that connect to your pages, the greater chances you’ll have of turning visitors into paying clients.
Recruiting affiliates to your programme will help you scale traffic faster in tandem with your other marketing activities. The more sites that connect to your pages, the more conversion prospects you’ll have, to turn users into paying clients.
Interestingly, affiliate links may not have a real effect on your search engine rankings.
But
They carry a huge ‘perceived value effect’. This means that more people will search for your products and navigate to your site. And that’s darn good for your rankings.
You can nearly always expect a bump in direct and organic traffic in addition to a larger amount of referral traffic.
It Allows You To Reach A Larger Audience.
Today, you can do affiliate marketing in almost any market or product sector.
And so,there will always be related sites to connect with. Whether you want to enter into the retail sector, or even an obscure niche like say, “Superfoods for Hamsters” or ‘”Coins of Medieval Europe’.
The real kicker is that many of these affiliates will already have a large audience.
These collaborations allow you to branch out into new markets.Markets in which you might not have had the resources to explore otherwise.
This helps to further saturate your existing target markets, giving your brand a far greater online presence.
You see, these companies serve as an arm of your existing marketing system.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a low-risk investment that can help you expand your product offerings beyond the conventional boundaries of a small firm.
In fact, it’s very often worth the cost, for the reasons highlighted here.
And really, it can propel your online marketing to new heights.
So, if you are a self-starter who can slowly establish a firm, and are aware of the industry’s pitfalls, you’ll get off to a far better start.
Despite knowing all the risks involved, I would still always prefer to pursue a career as an affiliate marketer.