Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission or make money by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. You find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.
Affiliate marketing is the same everywhere what matters most is the relevance of the products you are promoting, demography, and location.
Parties involved in Affiliate marketing.
- The Merchant,
- Network or Affiliate network.
- Publisher and
- The Customer.
What exactly is affiliate marketing.
For example, I want to sell a product so i signup as a merchant with an affiliate network hoping I’ll see an affiliate marketer that will sell it for me based on the percentage agreed by me and the network.
If you being an affiliate marketer, then choose to market the product and sell it through your link. You’ll get a commission based on the agreement i had with the network earlier.
The Merchant: (seller or product creator)
Sometimes also known as the creator, the brand, or the vendor. This is the party that creates the product. Anyone could be the merchant behind an affiliate marketing program. They don’t even have to be actively involved. They just have to have a product to sell then make it available for affiliate networks so affiliate marketers can sign up and promote the products.
The Affiliate: (You)
Also known as the publisher. Affiliates can also range from single individuals to entire companies (real estate agents fall into this category most times).
This is where the marketing happens. An affiliate promotes one or multiple affiliate products and tries to attract and convince potential customers about the value of the product so that they can end up buying it.
The Network
Only some consider the network part of the affiliate marketing equation. But, I believe that an affiliate marketing guide needs to include networks, because, in most cases, a network works as an intermediary between the affiliate and the merchant.
Sometimes, affiliates have to go through an affiliate network to be able to promote the product for more security reasons. Or if the merchant(Seller) only listed their product on a particular affiliate network.
The Consumer
The customer or consumer makes the affiliate system go ’round. Without sales, there won’t be any commission and revenue to share.
The affiliate will try to market to the consumer on whatever channel they see fit, whether it be a social network, digital billboards or through a search engine using content marketing on a blog.
Steps to getting started with affiliate marketing.
Step 1: choose a niche.
When starting an affiliate marketing business in Nigeria or any part of the world, you need to choose a specific niche that you find interesting to yourself or at least passionate about.
Factors to consider before choosing a niche.
- Profitability.
- Topics of interest (Passion).
- Level of saturation.
Step 2: Blogging.
Now that you’ve done your research on your affiliate niche. The next thing you have to do is set up a blog to promote your affiliate programs.
Building a blog around your affiliate business is what makes the income recurring. A blog makes it possible for you to make money from the previous works you’ve done even while you’re not working again.
Step 3: Content creation.
Now that you’ve set up your blog the next thing is to start creating content for people to read on your blog.
Be consistent with your writing. The more you write the better you get. That’s just how it works.
Step 4: Monetize.
This is the part that defines you as an affiliate marketer where you get to promote affiliate offers on your website. It’s advisable step 1 -3 is complete before proceeding to this step.
Ways to monetize includes.
You can display banners of products and services you are promoting on your website. The good news is that most affiliate program usually provides their set of banners for their affiliates to promote their products.
- Product Reviews
Writing reviews about affiliate offers is another good way to promote affiliate offers on your website i won’t really advise you about affiliate marketing this way because at times the commision you want to get can make you bias.
Step 5: Site Promotion
As a new blog, you won’t generate much traffic except you’re willing to put in some hard work. The truth this is going to require much of your time but if you’re willing to follow through, you’ll definitely see the result.
The following are ways you can use to promote your blog:
- Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc)
- Guest Posting
- Paid advertising
- Sending emails to subscribers
Affiliate programs to consider.
Blue host affiliate programs.
Simply promote Bluehost on your website with custom banners and links. For every visitor who clicks through these links and signs up, you will receive $65. Help others learn why Bluehost is so great. The more you do so, the more you make!.
Jumia affiliate programs.
Through Jumia affiliate program, you can turn your website or blog into a money making machine! Simply drive traffic to Jumia online store by choosing from their thousands of products to advertise to customers and make money when your visitors buy from them.
Payporte affiliate programs.
PayPorte is yet another e-commerce store and is regarded as Nigeria’s preferred online retail store when it comes to quality of products.
PayPorte has, since, its launch, thrived to ensure it caters to a wide demography that ranges from the youths and to the young urban professionals, providing a wide variety of products including fashion and accessories, fabrics, furniture, home appliances, tech gadgets and more.
Smartweb affiliate programs.
To sign up for our affiliate program, you can either register here if you dont have account or login to your Client area if you are an existing Client. Once you login click on the Affiliate and activate your link upon doing that you will be credited with ₦500 for Joining us.
How do i start the referring Others to smartweb?
We have a custom banner using html codes that will help you to advertise, you then add any of our banner to your Website or Blog, There is a unique referral link in the banner that will help you to track the Number of Visitors Referred and the signups. You can as well send your referral link to friend and family or colleagues via whatsapp, email, sms and social media. You can advertise by word of mouth to tell anyone about our product and services once you do that let us know if the person purchased we will add him/her under your affiliate so that you can track.
Do you have Higher Commissions for More Referrals!
Yes we do, if you can Drive a large number of sales or you think your site’s traffic is worth more than ₦100,000/ Sale then Contact our Affiliate Manager We might be able to discuss special arrangement just for you.
Other affiliate neworks or programs includes
- CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formally Commission Junction)
- Impact
- ShareAsale
- Rakuten LinkShare
- FlexOffers
- VigiLinks
- Skimlinks
- Affiliate Window
- Avangate
- LinkConnector