The current times have led to a very uncertain job security. This has caused a spike in the number of people looking for a passive and steady source of income.
This allows them to earn while they are engaged in other tasks or even when they sleep.
Sounds interesting, right?
It’s the affiliate marketing world. Though it might seem like a great way to earn a little extra cash, you might have to consider a lot of factors to get it right.
If you are looking for an all-inclusive source to learn about affiliate marketing and doing it for any WooCommerce website, you’ve landed at the right place.
Read on and dive into the rewarding world of affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing?
In simple terms, affiliate marketing refers to promoting someone’s products/services and getting a commission in exchange when a sale is made.
After employing the right skills, anybody can be a good affiliate marketer!
How does affiliate marketing work?
On a larger scale, affiliate marketing is not a single person’s job.
It involves three parties, each aiming for a win and leveraging affiliate marketing as per their potential.
The purchase happens through a link or coupon code provided by the seller, promoted by the affiliate and clicked on by the end-user.
Here is more about the people involved in an affiliate marketing set-up.
1. Seller or creator
A seller can be an entrepreneur, store owner, merchant, vendor, etc. having a product to sell. The product can be physical or digital.
The seller may not be actively involved in marketing directly. But may advertise the product, or set up their own affiliate program to allow affiliates to generate referral links and promote it.
Using WooCommerce for affiliate marketing? Here’s a very popular tool to set up your affiliate program.
2. Affiliates
Affiliates can be marketers, bloggers, publishers, influencers, deal sites, your customers, and more. They simply market the sellers’ products to consumers and earn a commission.
Remember, each affiliate marketer works as per their potential. For example, influencers can bring more referrals quickly.
3. Consumer
Without consumers, affiliate marketing is dead. When they buy the product, the seller and the affiliate share the profit. A good number of affiliates will disclose that they are receiving a commission.
The sales happen normally and consumers remain unaffected by the affiliate marketing system in which they are a significant part.
Since we are into affiliate marketing, the prime focus will be on affiliates.
How do affiliate marketers get paid and how much can they earn?
There is no limit on how much an affiliate marketer can earn. It depends on your niche and the amount of work you put in.
The most successful affiliate marketers make six or seven figures a month. Wow!
For example, Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income made over $100,000 in affiliate commissions in December 2017.
The affiliates get paid on every successful referral. But this paid commission is not constant. It varies. Let’s see how:
Pay per sale/pay per order
Here, the affiliate receives the commission on the total sale made. That is when a customer purchases a single product or multiple products in a single order. The commission is based on a percentage model, while some also offer flat-rate commissions.
And some offer different commission rates to different users based on who they are. For example, 40% for influencers, 30% for loyal customers, 20% for new customers.
Pay per lead
Another way affiliates get paid is when a lead gets converted. It can be a free trial converted to a paid plan, a visitor signing up for a free trial or a visitor subscribing to a newsletter.
This seems expensive as it is not sure whether the leads would successfully purchase something.
Mostly, agencies afford to run pay-per-lead as their marketing and onboarding process is quite robust.
Pay per click
This model is a little expensive and needs strong marketing because affiliates get paid when the user gets redirected to the seller’s website using the link.
Affiliates need to write a strong copy or message to encourage users to click the link. And even more, an effort for the seller to convince those users to buy.
Bonuses
Affiliates also get paid based on their performance. Sellers need to reward these affiliates more so that they keep on promoting more and stay with them for a longer duration.
Some affiliates may bring more referrals quickly than others. Some may even achieve targets you have set. So you need to reward such affiliates.
The rewards can be an extra 5% commission after 100 successful referrals, an extra $300 bonus on bringing 30 customers to the top-tier product, and so on.
A small vacation, movie tickets or gift vouchers are also rewards your affiliates will enjoy.
Pros of being an affiliate marketer
Now if you think it’s the money that encourages you to become an affiliate marketer, think again. There are other benefits of being an affiliate marketer.
Passive income
At a time when job security has hit rock bottom, earning passive income is bliss. Some investment in marketing efforts and a steady flow of income are on the cards. Another good thing is that you don’t need to continuously work hard to make ends meet.
No support
Since you are promoting other products, the support is handled by the seller’s team. It’s their job to keep customers satisfied. But you must select and promote products which are popular, and useful to the audience and select sellers whose support is quick and reliable.
No tech mumbo-jumbo
Being in affiliate marketing doesn’t necessitate the knowledge of product development, updates, and fixes.
Risk-free and cost-effective
Developing and maintaining a product involves capital. While being an affiliate marketer, you are saving money here. You can get started quickly and without much hassle.
Flexibility
Since you can work anywhere on your terms, you are free to set your own goals, select products and niches, negotiate terms with sellers, work as and when required, and a lot more. You’ll also have flexible rules and regulations to work.
Rewards
Affiliate marketing is based on performance. The more you promote and bring customers, the more you earn. However, to reap these benefits, you must also be proficient with other skills such as copywriting and SEO.
What are the best affiliate marketing channels?
Being an affiliate marketer, you need to amp up your marketing.
Leverage the following channels for fortunate affiliate marketing:
Copywriting and SEO
No one will come to your site directly and click on a link. Crisp, interesting and compelling copywriting powered by SEO will bring potential leads to your site.
For example, “the best tool for, top ten plugins for, honest review, how to achieve…” and similar topics rich with keywords will attract quality traffic to your website.
Influencers
Influencers can help you with high traction and exposure on social media. Instagram and YouTube are popular platforms for them today to reach out to their audiences.
They already boast an impressive following, so it’s easy for them to direct consumers to the seller’s products through social media posts, blogs and other interactions with their followers.
Here’s an in-depth guide on using influencers for affiliate marketing.
Bloggers
As mentioned about copywriting earlier in the article, list posts and reviews can also be written by bloggers. They promote your brand more compellingly, driving quality traffic to your site.
Social media
Influencers can leverage this channel to the maximum to their and the client’s advantage. Consider the influencer’s follower count and the number of engagements.
Deal sites
Deal sites are usually a fairground for affiliate marketing. They are hungry for commissions. You can easily send affiliate links or coupons to these people and they can promote it.
Email list
Email is still and will be the king. Affiliate marketers will have a list of audiences that may be interested in your products. Some may even build a list and then start promoting products to this list. Either way, it is a great way to kick-start promotions.
The best part of all these channels is your brand becomes visible to a wide audience. This also includes people who haven’t heard about your brand ever.
Well done! You are quite near on the path of being a successful affiliate marketer. Let’s see how to do affiliate marketing now.
How to start affiliate marketing?
Following these can be of real help while starting with affiliate marketing WooCommerce business:
Choosing the right platform
Affiliate marketing can be done through any social platform which can lead to strong promotions as well. However, it’s much easier to build an audience and increase your affiliate sales via blog and YouTube.
Starting a blog today is relatively easy and pocket-friendly. There are plenty of tutorials online that teach you how to get started.
Once your site is up, optimize it for search engines so that you have a better chance of ranking. From there, you’re free to add affiliate links to your content.
Another platform is YouTube. Creating and uploading content to YouTube is free, which makes it ideal for many people. Optimize your videos for SEO and include affiliate links in your description.
Select your niche
Let’s be honest, if you’re starting a blog today, you might come across a lot of competition. To stand the best chance of success, it’s best to find a niche.
Choose a topic that focuses on a specific category. For example, the topic of “marketing in WooCommerce” is an enormous category. Rather than tackling that, try something more specific, like ‘marketing with coupons in WooCommerce’.
Keeping your topics tight can help you build a more focused audience and potentially help you rank higher in search engines.
Find and join affiliate programs
An affiliate program is an agreement that allows people to become affiliates and earn commissions for sending traffic or sales your way.
There are three types of affiliate programs to choose from:
1. High-paying, low-volume affiliate programs:
These are affiliate programs for niche products with high payouts. Since you’re probably just starting, it’ll be quite challenging to make a meaningful amount of money competing against skilled marketers with deep pockets.
2. Low-paying, high-volume affiliate programs:
These are affiliate programs for products with low payouts but mass appeal.
For example, take PS4 games. A lot of people play PS4, but the average cost of a game is only around $50, and affiliate commissions are usually in the single digits. This means you’ll earn $2-3 per sale if you’re lucky.
The redeeming quality of these types of programs is that they usually offer tons of products to sell. Take Amazon’s affiliate program, for example. You can earn up to 10% commissions on almost anything Amazon sells.
To make these types of affiliate programs pay, you’ll need an endless supply of traffic.
3. High-paying, high-volume affiliate programs:
These are affiliate programs for products with mass appeal, which also pay high commissions. The biggest example is credit cards.
Everyone needs a credit card, and most people stay with an organization for years.
The downside of these types of products is that they attract affiliate marketers with lots of expertise and a large audience. Some also use spammy tactics that you just can’t compete with.
So which affiliate programs to join?
This depends on your niche and level of expertise.
If you’re targeting consumers, you’ll likely go with the second model of low commissions and higher sales volume.
If you’re going after a business audience, you’ll likely go for the first model: high-paying and low volume.
Create solid content
If you want your affiliate site to succeed, you need to create high-quality content where your affiliate links fit naturally.
Refrain from blindly curating products from Amazon’s best sellers. Take a step forward to make sure your content solves the visitor’s problem.
For example, if you’re doing reviews, purchase the product and test it. A review that sounds natural will have more impact. Moreover, a video review has an increased potential to perform better.
Increase traffic to your affiliate site
You’ve created great content. The next step is to get more people to read it, so they will click on your affiliate links. Here are three traffic strategies to consider:
1. Paid traffic:
The advantage of paid traffic is that the moment you start paying, you get traffic. However, running ads will dig into your profits. It’s quite normal for advertisers to lose money before it goes live.
You need to be realistic about how long it takes to optimize a paid traffic campaign. Once you stop paying for ads, your traffic will stop.
Generally speaking, ads are a great traffic strategy if you’re part of a high-paying affiliate program and can make the numbers work.
But if you’re completely new without a budget, then it might not be such a great idea.
2. Search engine optimization (SEO):
For as long as you can rank high in the search engines for your target keywords, you’ll get consistent and passive traffic.
On the most basic level, SEO is about understanding what your target customers are searching for.
Besides that, you must create content around those topics and take care of the ‘technical’ stuff to push these pages higher in the search engines.
3. Build an email list:
Use your list to tell fans about new content and keep them coming back to your site for more. This leads to more affiliate clicks and sales.
You can even send affiliate email promotions to your list directly.
To build an email list, you need to persuade the readers on your site to sign up. That means offering something valuable like a free ebook, an email course, etc. All you need is some creativity.
Get clicks on your affiliate links
Just because you have an amazing piece of content doesn’t mean people will click on your affiliate links. There are three things you need to consider:
1. Link placement:
If all your affiliate links are at the bottom of the page where people rarely scroll, clicks will be few and far between.
On the other hand, make every other word a link in your introduction and your content will look spammy. You need to balance link placement with the other factors below.
2. Context:
Let’s say you were writing an article on the best Bluetooth headphones for under $99. Your introduction probably shouldn’t look like this: “Today, I’m reviewing the best Bluetooth headphones.” The links look out of context and spammy.
Instead, this would make more sense: “Today, I’m reviewing three different Bluetooth headphones you can buy on Amazon for under $99”.
3. Callouts:
Using callouts like buttons, tables and boxes can help attract your readers’ attention and make the post more skimmable. Unique, crisp and conversion-friendly call outs will also increase the chances for conversions.
Turn clicks into sales
In affiliate marketing, two conversions need to take place for you to make money.
The first conversion is the click to the product page. You’re 100% in control of this action. Use the tactics above to improve your chances of getting that click.
The second conversion is the visitor purchasing the product. In the case of affiliate marketing, the merchant controls the checkout, and their conversion rates are out of your control.
The trick is to play the game to your advantage and look for merchants with programs that convert well.
Benefits of having your affiliate program
Being an affiliate marketer, you can join other affiliate programs.
If you are a WooCommerce seller or a blogger having something to sell, it’s better to set up your affiliate program.
Why? Here are some of its benefits:
Exposure
Your business will be more visible. Have a dedicated landing page as well. Here’s our affiliate program landing page. The process is clear and simple. Simply join it and start making money.
Lower costs
In other affiliate networks, there’s a membership fee, monthly fees and a transaction fee for every successful referral. Having your affiliate program won’t cost you so much cash.
Full control
Other affiliate programs come with a series of complex features and clutter. But with your program, you can customize it as per your needs and make it straightforward.
Dependency
Unlike earlier times, you won’t have to depend on any specific program to issue payments or meet conditions.
Consistent marketing
With your affiliate program, you can get people from across the globe 24*7.
Setting up an affiliate program in WooCommerce
Running a WooCommerce store? Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin makes it pretty simple to set up your affiliate program. Recruit the right affiliates, set commissions and marketing campaigns and allow them to promote your products.
It’s simple, jargon-free and without complications, unlike other plugins. Trusted by 5500+ users, it’s a hot-selling plugin on WooCommerce.com.
The Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin provides all of these mentioned below and a few more:
Single-screen interface
It’s always better to have all but only important details under one roof, making the plugin clutter-free and gives users a better experience.
Auto or manual affiliate approval
Quality affiliates matter. You want to manually approve affiliate accounts to avoid spam and fraud or weed out affiliates that are irrelevant to your brand or goals.
You can also make user roles like Customers to automatically make them your affiliate partners.
Use coupons for tracking referrals
Social sites like Instagram don’t allow links. So coupons can be used as affiliate links. For coupons and deal sites too, coupons are more convenient than links.
Affiliate marketing campaigns
Create unlimited affiliate marketing campaigns – add images, banners, email swipes, whatever you wish to.
Your affiliates can use them to promote your brand better. You can also combine videos, product manuals, other media assets, swipes, and other marketing assets and share them with specific affiliates.
You can also track the performance of each campaign separately in GA4.
Landing pages
Assign landing pages to affiliates and allow them to promote without referral link or coupon.
Multiple commission rates
Some affiliates bring more referrals than others. Some may be influencers. These people may also expect rewards for their hard work. So, set different affiliate commission rates for different affiliates.
Payouts
You need to pay affiliates their commission on a timely basis. You can send your commissions directly to PayPal using the plugin or manually mark commissions and pay outside the plugins.
Self-manageable
You don’t have to go through complex procedures and advanced technical know-how to operate the plugin. Affiliates can register, generate links, and track commissions themselves. Affiliate partners can be chosen automatically or manually.
Real-time, accurate and advanced reports
Which affiliates are performing better, and the sold products, all such data in real-time is a necessity. You can find all the KPIs under one roof.
Get Affiliate for WooCommerce plugin
Mistakes to avoid when using WooCommerce for affiliate marketing
With all the great aspects, using WooCommerce for affiliate marketing could also have its fair share of cons. Do it wrong and you might end up struggling.
Avoid the following mistakes:
Promoting products for money
Amateur marketers are interested in money and not the value the product delivers. Focus on what the audience will gain from using the products you promote.
Also, don’t always fall to sellers offering higher commissions. The product quality may not be great. So think from the customers’ perspective.
Recommending untrustworthy products
You must recommend products that you have used and that gained your trust as a customer/consumer.
Your hands-on approach will guide you in creating a genuine recommendation that will help your audience by making the right decision.
Wrong product, partner selection
If your audience is the type who is inclined towards healthy products, selling some other health-related products or organic foods won’t work well, and refraining from selling electronic products.
Like products, if you end up selecting the wrong partners, that can hamper your affiliate sales as well.
Ignoring SEO
If you have very comprehensive content but it’s not optimized for search, there is almost no point in it.
Make sure to carry out your SEO research before planning your article list.
Go beyond SEO. You can do so with social media, as well as email marketing. Utilize these mediums to promote affiliate products and earn good traction of traffic.
Avoiding split testing
While preparing marketing campaigns like social media ads, Google ads or email campaigns, we often have many ideas to deliver the same message. But we rely on the first one.
So don’t refrain from trying things out like running two sets of infographics from the same campaign or using two subject lines for the same email.
This will provide you with the most important learning which is self-learning. Chances are, it can turn out to be a magical campaign.
Affiliate marketing hacks
Want your affiliate marketing WooCommerce stream to thrive? Check out these affiliate marketing hacks:
Competitor analysis
Analyze what your competitors are offering and at what price. It will help you make decisions on selecting products and setting commissions, agreements and targets.
Maintain the product quality
Successful affiliate marketing WooCommerce is not just about how high the commission or the money. It’s all about having a great converting product that has an edge over your competitors.
Remember, a great converting product is the easiest way to repeat conversions.
Claim a niche market
Don’t try to sell everything to everyone, this might cause you to refrain from reaching the right audience. Select a niche market, identify where your product fits best and then promote it.
Segment your affiliates
You have a list of customers. Identify customers like top spenders, new customers acquired within the first three months and so on. Try to make these customers affiliates. See what works better and keep experimenting.
Take care of your partners
Communicate with them by welcoming them to your affiliate program. Send out updates on product additions or changes. Give them tips and advice on successfully marketing your products.
Always pay them on time. Give bonuses to some who give more sales.
Try Affiliate for WooCommerce demo
Conclusion
A straightforward process, affiliate marketing is for everyone to make an income.
Although success depends on the affiliate’s marketing skills, it can prove to be an effective way to meet your income goals as either a primary career or a profitable second job.
Follow the tips, hacks, and ideas mentioned in this article, and you’ll thrive.
FAQs
Q1. What problem does affiliate marketing solve?
Affiliate marketing can solve the following problems:
- Comparatively a cost-effective advertising channel.
- Reaching wider niche audiences.
- Ability to stop fraudulent traffic and more.
Q2. What are the threats to affiliate marketing?
Fraudulent activities are one most prominent threats to affiliate marketing.
Q3. What are the main types of affiliate marketing?
The main types of affiliate marketing are as follows:
- Unattached affiliate marketing.
- Involved affiliate marketing.
- Related affiliate marketing.
Q4. What are some of the best affiliate marketing websites in 2024?
Q5. Which is the best network for affiliate marketing?