Are you looking for an online business to start or an alternative source of online income? Affiliate marketing could be the perfect online business to start due to the many advantages it has over other types of businesses. In this post we'll take a look at reasons to start affiliate marketing to earn an online income.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a commission based business model. You can earn money for promoting a company's products or services.
We'll cover the basics here and the reasons to start affiliate marketing. Learn more in this blog post about affiliate marketing.
You earn a commission payment when the visitor takes the specified action. There are multiple types of payment model and these are specified by the vendor. Quite commonly this is pay per sale, where you are paid for a completed customer purchase.
Other popular payout models include pay per install, where you are paid after a user installs something like a mobile app, and pay per action, which covers a broad range of actions such as signing up for a newsletter or free trial.
Affiliate marketing is a very accessible business model as it requires no creating products and is free to start. And as it's online, physical location is no barrier.
The market is huge and continuing to grow. According to data from Statista, U.S. affiliate marketing spend is due to reach 8.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, up from 5.4 billion recorded in 2017.
There are many advantages of affiliate marketing, making it a very popular way to earn an income online. Below we will look at more reasons to start affiliate marketing.
What Are The Reasons To Start Affiliate Marketing?
Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing Explained
Below is an explanation of the top 10 reasons to start affiliate marketing.
Free to start
One of the best reasons to start affiliate marketing is that you can start for free. Most affiliate programs are free to join. And there are also plenty of free traffic and marketing sources such as social media.
This is in contrast to other businesses such as physical retail that have high start up costs. As you scale you may find you need to spend some money. This could be on web hosting, advertising and marketing software for instance which can help increase your returns. But there is no actual requirement to spend a single dollar on anything.
Work From Anywhere
Like many businesses that are operated solely online, all that is required to start affiliate marketing is a computer and internet access. This means you can not only work from home but from anywhere in the world. So long as you have IT access you can run your campaigns.
Low Risk
Another of the reasons to start affiliate marketing is that it is a very low risk business model. Especially with being able to start for free – it allows anybody to give it a go without any financial commitment. You do not need to spend time or money developing or manufacturing products or hiring premises etc. This means if you don't achieve any success or you feel it isn't right for you, you are free to quit at any time.
High Earnings Potential
It's important not to go into affiliate marketing with unrealistic expectations of making money immediately. But it does have potential to earn you a very high income. Some people never make a cent whereas others are making millions of dollars. If you are dedicated, spend time learning and optimize your strategies then you absolutely can make a living from affiliate marketing.
Easy To Scale
Once established, it becomes easier to scale an affiliate marketing business. Relatively little resources are required to grow. You could introduce new products and services to your audience, use additional marketing channels to extend your reach, build email lists, use more targeted marketing, utilize software and tools more effectively, improve content etc.
Multiple Payout Models
One of the benefits of affiliate marketing is the variety of different payout models. These determine how you are paid. The main payout models are pay per sale, pay per click, pay per install, pay per lead and pay per action.
Pay per sale – A very common payout method where you are paid once a visitor completes a purchase.
Pay per click –This isn't very common. You are paid each time your link is clicked, regardless of whether the visitor makes a purchase.
Pay per install – This allows you to be paid when a user installs something. This is very popular with new apps and software.
Pay per lead – You are paid for providing a lead to the business such as somebody signing up for a free consultation for example.
Pay per action – This is a very broad model that pays you when a user takes the specified action. This could include a wide range of actions such as signing up for a newsletter, a free product trial or completing a contact form.
No Need To Create A Product Or Service
As an affiliate you are only promoting a company's product or service. Your only responsibility is to drive traffic and convince them to take the appropriate action to receive your commission. You do not need to invest time or money into creating your own product or service. There is also no handling of the product you are promoting. Although it is often beneficial to try out and review the thing you wish to promote.
Find Products In Any Niche
Whatever niche you operate in you will be sure to find a product that fits. For instance if you already run a blog in the health and fitness niche, you may turn to affiliate marketing as a way to monetize it. So you may be looking for a provider of exercise equipment or nutritional supplements to promote. You could check out vendors operating in this sector that have affiliate programs. Or sometimes much more convenient are affiliate networks.
Affiliate networks are large platforms that provide access to affiliate programs from many different businesses in one central location. This can be easier than joining many separate affiliate programs.
Some of these affiliate networks provide access to a certain niche or specialism such as digital only products. Whereas many of them are very large and include programs across most niches. Good examples of these are FlexOffers and ShareASale.
Multiple Marketing Channels
One great thing about affiliate marketing is that there are such a wide variety of marketing channels to reach your desired audience. This can include websites, blogs, social media, email marketing, native ads and much more.
Source Of Passive Income
Passive income can generate future income with minimal or no further intervention. Of course it does require time and effort to set up. But when compare to other income sources such as an e-commerce store, affiliate marketing is less likely to require as much ongoing work.
Take a blog post as an example. This requires time to research, write and optimize for search engines. But once published, the affiliate links it contains are now available for any future visitor that lands on your blog to use.
Disadvantages Of Affiliate Marketing
Now we've looked at the reasons to start affiliate marketing, we must point out that like any business model there are a few downsides. The main disadvantages of affiliate marketing are as follows;
- Affiliate marketing can be extremely competitive, which can make it difficult to stand out from other affiliates.
- There can be a lot of pressure to perform, as affiliates are often working on commission so there is no guaranteed paycheck.
- Some affiliate programs can be scams, which can lead to wasted time and money.
- Affiliate marketing can be time-consuming, as it requires research and constant promotion.
- It can be difficult to build up a large enough audience to generate significant income from affiliate marketing.
Don't expect to be making megabucks right away. It takes, time, patience and persistence to succeed at affiliate marketing. Too many people fail because they go into it with unrealistic expectations and quit too early. But you absolutely can make a living out of it if you learn and try hard enough.
Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is an easy to understand business model that uses a commission based structure. As an affiliate you receive commission when a visitor completes a specified action. This can include sales, leads, installs or other actions.
There are many reasons to start affiliate marketing. For starters it is low risk due to there being no costs to start. All you require is a computer with internet access, so physical location is no barrier to entry.
Other benefits of affiliate marketing include high earnings potential, wide product choice and is easy to scale up.
Before starting affiliate marketing we recommend you read this blog post of the 10 affiliate marketing mistakes to avoid.
Read more posts like this on our blog including;
