The Covid 19 pandemic has greatly affected almost all businesses. Some industries have taken the pandemic’s impact much harder than the others, such as restaurants, airlines, movie theaters, live events, and more.
While the pandemic harmed many industries, affiliate marketing experienced an uneven impact. Some companies used to offer affiliate marketing and completely vanished, but at the same time, some sectors flourished.
If you’re looking for successful industries to connect yourself with, choose health care services and related products. One industry that has seen increased attention over the past year is iGaming. You can partner with sites like Scanteam to learn more about iGaming affiliates.
In the United States, the spending for affiliate marketing is expected to reach up to $8.2 billion by 2022. In a report commissioned by Rakuten, 84% of publishers and 81% of advertisers use affiliate marketing.
Almost half of the publishers surveyed in the same report stated that more than 20% of their annual revenue is accounted for by affiliate marketing. According to the study, US affiliate marketing will increase to a 10.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2015 and 2020.
The statistics show that affiliate marketing is here to stay and will continue to grow. So, it’s good to invest in learning how affiliate marketing works to increase your income.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Individuals and organizations use affiliate marketing to earn commission by promoting another company’s products and services.
Here’s how you can use affiliate marketing:
Get started by looking for an affiliate program or network you’re interested in. When searching for affiliate programs, please take note of the program’s overview, including the types of services or products they offer, commission, and payment methods.
If the program appeals to you, you can sign up then wait for the confirmation that you are accepted. You can create content once you are accepted while adding the affiliate program’s customized links. The links can track when one of your viewers purchases a product, so you’ll earn a commission.
You can promote your affiliate links on your website, on social media, in newsletters, emails, and other channels where you’re permitted to share links.
To better understand how affiliate marketing works, let’s take a look at the people involved in a successful affiliate marketing system. These include:
The Merchant
The merchant is also called the seller, creator, brand, retailer, or vendor. It could be an individual entrepreneur or a company with a product or service to promote.
An example of a merchant is an e-commerce entrepreneur who would like to approach new customers by paying affiliate sites to market their products. The merchant can also be a digital service provider that wants to utilize affiliates to help market its services.
The Affiliate Marketer
An affiliate marketer or publisher can be an individual or company that promotes the merchant’s products or services to potential customers. The affiliate will need to persuade people to purchase.
If a consumer buys an item or service, the affiliate can get a part of the revenue created. An affiliate marketing business can provide hundreds, thousands, or even millions in monthly commission.
The Customer
The end goal of affiliate marketing is for the customers or consumers to purchase a product or service. Without sales, there will be no commission or revenue shared with the affiliates.
Why Should You Consider Affiliate Marketing?
Enrolling in different marketing courses will enhance your knowledge and give you an edge among the increasing number of affiliates.
Below are other reasons why you should pursue to become an affiliate marketer:
For Passive Income
While many jobs will require you to be present at work to earn, affiliate marketing allows you to get money while doing nothing. However, you should first spend a little time setting up a campaign.
After establishing your audience, you’ll find constant returns because many of your audience support buying the products or services you promote.
Convenience and Flexibility
By becoming a freelance affiliate marketer, you can define your objectives and select products you like. You can decide on the hours you’ll spend on marketing and change to different affiliate programs, as long as you’re following the contract you’re bound by.
You can also decide which affiliate campaign or program you want to concentrate on. And, you become your own boss because you won’t need to follow company rules and restrictions.
For Performance-Based Rewards
Unlike any other job where you’ll need to complete working hours set by a company and get a fixed salary, affiliate marketing is based on your performance. You’ll be rewarded depending on what you put into your work.
To generate high commission, you should practice creating appealing campaigns that can convert into a significant income.
For Excellent Return
On the other hand, if you’re an entrepreneur or company searching for an effective way to market your product without the need to spend so much, affiliate marketing should be your go-to.
Affiliate marketing is a low-budget, low-effort scheme that you can use to reach many potential customers and increase brand awareness.
Top 12 Affiliate Marketing Courses for Beginners
Now that you already know the benefits of becoming an affiliate marketer, you might be asking, “Which course is best for affiliate marketing?”
To answer your question, Alex Lysak, a marketing expert, listed legit affiliate marketing courses that you can start with. Check out his profile if you want to see his other posts.
While you can Google free affiliate marketing courses, expect that some will ask you for a small fee. Consider it an investment for learning!
1. Learn How to Build High-Quality Affiliate Websites Course by Udemy
Considered one of the best courses for affiliate marketing, it’s to be expected that this course doesn’t come without cost. This program is for anyone who wants to build a great and successful website and learn how to use affiliate programs to earn a passive income.
In this course, you’ll learn the following:
● The technicalities of setting up WordPress and Google analytics
● How to install SEO plugins
● How to build high-quality affiliate websites with good click-through and conversion rates, and much more.
2. 123 Affiliate Marketing Course by Pat Flynn
Pat Flynn’s 123 Affiliate Marketing Course will help students learn affiliate marketing and generate passive income. Pat is an expert in creating passive income streams, and he started affiliate marketing in 2010. His success is proven through the $3 million he already earned through the process.
Through this course, Pat Flynn will teach his students how to replicate his success.
While anyone can take this course, Pat suggests that it’s best if his students already have an audience and online presence. This way, they can immediately put Pat’s methods into action.
By taking this course, you’ll learn:
● How to choose affiliate-friendly products to promote
● How to solve SEO problems
● How to find the best channels for affiliate marketing
● How to design quality landing pages
3. ClickBank Success by Udemy
ClickBank Success – Affiliate Marketing Without a Website is one of Udemy’s highly-rated courses.
Through this course, you will be guided, through every step, on how to become a ClickBank marketplace. This is the perfect option for beginners who want to learn the basics of affiliate marketing and become successful.
Other knowledge you can gain from this course:
● How to choose a profitable ClickBank Product
● How to keep track of ad performance for relevant keywords and make significant changes
● How to recognize and remove incorrect ClickBank products
● How to market your ClickBank products on Facebook without investment
4. Beginner Affiliate Marketing by Udemy
This course from Udemy will show its students how to do affiliate marketing without a website. This is so students can immediately start marketing and selling instead of spending time developing their websites.
By taking this course, you’ll learn the following:
● How to conduct affiliate marketing without a website
● How to create email and social media ads
● How to choose the right products and niche
5. Affiliate Marketing for Beginners by Skillshare
This course from Skillshare is aimed at guiding beginners on affiliate marketing. It walks students through setting up an affiliate marketing program from start to finish. The course focuses on building and testing ads beneficial to long-term success.
By taking this course, you’ll learn:
● How to create test ads
● How to advertise through different means
● How to get started with affiliate marketing
6. Affiliate Marketing Side Hustle by Skillshare
Affiliate Marketing Side Hustle: A New Entrepreneurs Guide is an excellent course for beginners in the affiliate marketing industry.
This course will help you:
● Understand what affiliate marketing is
● Know how to share and spread affiliate links online
● Know rules about using affiliate links
● Get blog ideas to generate traffic
7. The $1,000/Month Affiliate System Course by Shout University
If you want to enter the affiliate marketing world as a side hustle to earn extra income, this course will be good for you. It focuses on the basic skills needed to start affiliate marketing, build a sustainable platform, and maintain an appropriate income.
By taking this course, you’ll learn:
● Affiliate marketing basics
● The processes to get started with affiliate marketing
● How to reach your first $1,000
● How to use the Amazon Affiliate program
8. Savage Affiliates by Franklin Hatchett
This course will give students a step-by-step blueprint to generate an effective passive income. It also talks about various affiliate networks such as ClickBank and Amazon and how to drive free and paid traffic.
One of the best ways to communicate with subscribers and customers is email marketing. But it’s hard to find affiliate-friendly email autoresponders. One of the lessons you’ll learn in this course is how to build an automatic email marketing system.
This course will also teach you the following:
● How to look for winning niches
● How to design the right website for your niche
● Help you understand how SEO works
9. The Affiliate Lab by Matt Diggity
Matt Diggity is a former electrical engineer but he decided to pursue affiliate marketing and SEO. He found suitable methods to turn websites into high-earning platforms and sell them for a profit through his affiliate marketing journey.
So, if you already have an existing website, this course is good for you. It will teach you how to quickly flip an existing website to gain profit.
By taking this course, you’ll also learn:
● How to find affiliate programs
● How to approach and acquire different affiliate websites or programs
● How to turn the existing website into a sustainable and profitable business through SEO
10. How to Start Affiliate Marketing by Voluum
This free course from Voluum is aimed at complete beginners in affiliate marketing. While you learn without spending money, you’ll also receive an affiliate marketing certification. Pretty sweet, right?
By taking this course, you’ll learn:
● How to choose the right affiliate platform, niche, and products
● How to make and design effective marketing ads
● How to generate traffic and increase conversion
● How to track your affiliate marketing’s progress and measure your campaign performance
11. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing by Making Sense
This course is suitable for bloggers who want to include affiliate marketing on their sites to add to their blog’s monetization strategy.
While blogging and affiliate marketing usually go hand in hand, this course will further help bloggers understand the secrets of affiliate marketing and blog monetization.
This course gives in-depth details on text-based affiliate marketing and how to create systems that will lead to success.
In this course, you’ll also learn the following:
● How to add and implement affiliate marketing on a blog
● How to understand and monitor performance statistics
● How to create interconnected links and affiliate systems
12. Affiliate Marketing Foundations by LinkedIn Learning
This course from LinkedIn will give you a broad overview of affiliate marketing. While the course is relatively short, it is the fastest way for beginners to understand the processes and terminology in affiliate marketing programs.
By taking this course, you will learn:
● What affiliate marketing is all about
● How to create an affiliate marketing platform
● How to create your brand as an affiliate marketer
● How to join different affiliate marketing programs
How to Choose an Affiliate Marketing Course
Choosing which affiliate marketing course is best for you will depend on your personal preferences. Before you pick your course, consider your level of experience in the affiliate marketing industry, along with your available resources, as most courses aren’t free.
Whichever course you choose, it is vital to learn from it and practice what you learned. Take note that finishing a course is just one of the aspects of being a great marketing affiliate.
What Are the Common Affiliate Marketing Channels?
To help you decide on which affiliate marketing course to take, this section will discuss the common channels for affiliate marketing. You can choose a course based on the channel you would like to pursue your affiliate marketing.
Bloggers
With SEO or relevant keywords, bloggers excel in conversion rates. Bloggers can write a comprehensive review on the brand or service they promote in a compelling way to drive traffic.
Bloggers’ ability to influence customers to buy a service or product determines their earnings.
Influencers
Influencers on particular social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook have the power to impact their follower’s purchasing decisions.
Influencer marketing campaigns are popular on Instagram and TikTok, where brands can partner with influencers.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is also an effective way to earn money in affiliate marketing. Some affiliates may leverage email newsletters with hyperlinks to products and earn commission from the consumer after purchasing a product.
Large Media Websites
These websites already have huge audiences. They promote products or services to their massive audiences using contextual affiliate links and banners.
Tips to Succeed in Affiliate Marketing
Below are some tips to become a successful affiliate marketer:
Find a Unique Niche
If you want to have a successful affiliate marketing site, you must stick to one niche. The most common mistake of affiliate marketers is offering everything instead of focusing on a specific niche.
Do not scatter your efforts on offering different products and services. By establishing yourself as an expert in a particular area, you’ll cultivate customers with specific interests. So, find your niche, then focus on promoting and selling it.
Know Your Product and Your Audience
By learning about the products and services you promote to your audience, you can create content for your website that builds your credibility. That credibility is critical for your audience’s trust in you.
Additionally, when you create content, you need to provide quality and valuable information for your audience so they will keep coming back. Research and provide more details and updated information for your audience.
Engage Your Visitors
Many of the most successful affiliate marketers talk to their visitors. If you have a blog, you can allow comments to have an opportunity to communicate. If you start dialogues and reply to your commenters, they will return to continue the conversation.
At the end of each of your blog posts, you can ask questions such as:
● “Would you like more information regarding this topic?”
● “What other information should be included?”
● “Tell us your opinion!”
These will encourage interaction and communication within your site — the more visitors on your page, the more likelihood of conversion.
Improve Your Search Engine Marketing
Once you build your affiliate marketing platform, you will need to promote it and rank high on search engines. Many affiliates use pay-per-click engines like Overture and Google Ads. However, they can be expensive, especially for beginners.
You can search for ways to improve your search engine optimization organically. Or you can hire individuals or companies who are experts in search engine marketing.
Track Your Affiliate Marketing Success
By tracking the success of your affiliate marketing, you’ll gain insights into what you should do to be more successful.
You will need to use your visitor analytics to know the percentage of new and returning visitors and what links on your page get clicked often. Also, you should know which pages are visited most before a conversion.
By knowing that information, you can use it to find out what new content is relevant to your visitors and where to place links on certain pages.
Always Seek Additional Knowledge and Embrace Change
Internet marketing changes constantly. What worked a few months ago may not work today. Or, what was trending last year may not be trending now. So, it’s essential to stay updated on what’s new in affiliate marketing.
To become a successful affiliate marketer, you must spend time learning and embracing the changes in online marketing.
Keep Trying
Don’t give up easily if you don’t see immediate success in affiliate marketing. Instead, keep trying. You can set realistic expectations and carefully examine your statistics to know which strategy is working or not.
You can make changes as necessary. And, always remember that becoming successful in the affiliate marketing industry doesn’t happen overnight. It will require a lot of patience and learning.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing takes commitment and consistency to gain your audience’s trust and build a thriving business. Aside from the tips mentioned above, it is vital to take different courses to learn from successful affiliates and replicate their success.
About the Author
Alex Lysak – I am working in online marketing since 2011, my main areas of expertise are marketing research, social media marketing, and SEO. During 9 years of experience, I have helped many products and startups to develop marketing strategies and to implement them further. I am CEO of Scanteam.pro and SEOBROTHERS. I and my team of experts work on innovative solutions in the iGaming niche all the time.
