How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing Principles Classes & Difference

How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is probably the finest and easiest way to make sustainable amount of money online. Its the first model I went into when I got online and I have been very successful with it. I make money promoting different products on my review websites.

I also do CPA marketing which is related to affiliate marketing but we are going to focus on affiliate marketing in this report. I might have to say a little about CPA marketing somewhere in the report so that you get a good idea of how that works too.

First you need to know what to expect as you prepare for the money making journey. Internet marketing is not something you can start today and learn everything in a day and start making money right away.

You will need to learn and apply what you have learnt to make it work. You will encounter trials and disappointments and if you can’t deal with that, you are likely to quit. Most people have quit and it takes mental toughness to get through and be a success in this.

I am not trying to scare you or something. If I can do it, so can you. There is a lot of money to be made online doing different stuffs. You just have to learn it, do it, be patient, work hard and then get paid.

Read these blog posts I wrote on my blog on how internet marketing and your mindset work together.

Those posts will teach you a lot about how internet marketing works generally and prepare you for what to expect in your online marketing journey.

So my friend, welcome to the world of internet marketing and the world of a model called Affiliate Marketing. As I said before, its probably the easiest way to make lots of money online so you will enjoy reading this.

Lets get right to it.

Principles of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a process in which a merchant gives a commission to an affiliate for promoting and generating a sale on his behalf. It works in such a way that the affiliate is giving an agreed percentage for each sale an he helps make.

Let me put it in a lay man’s language. You know the Ibo guys that sell electronics right or general goods? Yes if you have ever gone to buy electronics yourself at any places where you have Ibo boys, you will notice some guys beckon on potential buyers.

They don’t own a store there or even have anything of their own to sell. Their job is to find buyers and refer them to any seller and if the buyer buys, the seller will give them commission for bringing in the buyer. Its that simple.

So this guys make money without having a store or owning their own wares. They just refer buyers to sellers and get paid. The more buyers they refer in a day, the more they make.

And best part is that they don’t work for one seller. They refer buyers to different sellers. Whatever a buyer needs, as long as there is a seller for it, they take them to any seller of their choice.

That’s how affiliate marketing works. Except this time, it works online. You get recruited online to find buyers. You refer buyers to the seller’s online store and when the person you refer buys something, you get paid an agreed commission. Everything happens online without any physical contact.

I hope I have been able to break that down in a way a layman would understand. So let me tell you more about how it works online. First I need you to know the terms used online. Yes the Ibo guy whose job is to find customers, the seller, the store, the share he gets etc. have terms used in affiliate marketing.

I will make you understand the terms and some acronyms used.

Difference Between Affiliate and CPA Marketing

Before we go further, let me tell you the difference between affiliate marketing and CPA marketing. While affiliate marketing is the general term for the method of marketing that involves getting commissions for sales, CPA marketing is same but you get paid for any action taken instead of outright sales.

For CPA marketing you get paid for actions such as an impression, click, form submit (e.g., contact request, newsletter sign up, registration etc.), double opt-in or sale.

Your lead does not have to buy anything, although some actions involve sales. For example, in the ad banner below, you get paid if your lead enters his email and sign up for the offer. Its as simple as that.

Some actions could be to fill an address, phone number, names and emails. If your leads do that, you get paid. 

Classes of Affiliate Products

Now lets get to work and let me teach you how to start. Now you know the terms and you know how the model works. To get in and start making money with it, you have to join an affiliate network, get approved, do research, set up your own website, add your affiliate links, promote your links, get leads, make sales and finally get paid.

That’s the whole steps from beginning to the end. But before all that, we need to figure out what it is you want to promote. There are many types of products to promote. We have different classes of products.

You can promote virtually anything. These are the 3 classes of products to promote in affiliate marketing.

There are physical products, digital products and online programs affiliate products. Amazon for example deals in physical products, even though they still sell some digital items like kindles eBooks.

Clickbank is a digital products affiliate network. All they have on their site are digital products or eBooks.

The third type of product you can promote are online programs like membership sites affiliate programs or email marketing services like aweber or getresponse programs.

You can promote any of the three classes of products and it does not matter which of them you go with. In fact you can promote all three and make more money.

But I always encourage anyone going into affiliate marketing to start with one class of products. Then find a good affiliate network to join and start doing your research to pick products to promote.

If you want to promote physical products then you can start with Amazon. Amazon is the largest affiliate network in the world and they have all physical products you can think of from toys to electronics to phones, clothing, books, Kindles etc.