Here is a post I wrote on social media recently that I want to add as a blog post for anyone who might get value from it:
Have you been trying to make money as an affiliate marketer but haven’t seen any success, regardless of how many courses you buy and how much time you put into it? Then this post is for you.
The traditional way of building an affiliate marketing business does not work like it used to. I’ve heard this from many people with online businesses either selling their own products or selling other companies’ products as an affiliate.
There is a new way to build an affiliate business. If affiliates do not adapt, they are more likely to stay stuck and/or find it more difficult to make money.
Here is a breakdown of the traditional way and the new way.
How it used to work is the affiliate connects a person with a product they need (this part is the same as now, but keep reading). Affiliates did this either by generating free traffic or paid traffic through online advertising, and sending the traffic to the affiliate links with product offers available to purchase. Some people would buy the product, and the affiliate earned a commission.
Many years ago, online advertising was a popular method to get traffic because it was inexpensive. Affiliates could generate many leads for a nominal ad cost. Affiliates could make money even on modestly priced products and services. It was profitable because of the low cost of driving traffic to the links.
Eventually, online advertising platforms started increasing the cost of advertising. I heard of something called the Google slap many years ago, when Google increased ad costs by up to 10x seemingly overnight.
It was a nightmare situation for affiliates (and any business advertising online) because the ad costs increased to the point where they could no longer make a profit. This way of building an affiliate business no longer worked. Commissions had to increase significantly to stay profitable.
Eventually, affiliates figured out a new way.
Here are some of the main components of this new roadmap.
First, a new commission structure was made:
- Small commissions– $1-$10
- moderate-sized commissions– $10-$100
- medium-sized commissions– $100-$500
- Large commissions– $500-$1000+
- Recurring commissions (such as monthly recurring revenue)
Affiliates need to incorporate more products at different commission levels. The lower-priced products are used to capture leads and new customers, and then profits are made by offering the higher-priced products that generate larger commissions. Overall, the affiliate has to have multiple streams of income to achieve a high level of success.
Next, a new method allowing affiliates to offer multiple products was created:
- Generate traffic- the same free and paid traffic strategies are used as before (albeit with higher ad costs).
- Capture traffic- Use free or low-priced products to attract leads and acquire new customers. Obtain some basic information from the leads and customers, such as an email address, to have a direct way to follow up with them with more product offers in the future.
- Follow up- set up automated emails to send to leads and new customers with more information about the industry, trade, hobby, and passion related to the products. Give them educational and useful information such as tips, behind-the-scenes content, product reviews, personal experiences, or stories. Build a relationship with your audience so they know, like, and trust you.
- Make product offers- In some of the follow-up emails, include product offers for the higher-priced, larger commission products. Some people will purchase them, and the affiliate will make a profit.
There are 3 ways to grow any business:
- Get more customers
- Sell more products to new customers
- Get customers to buy more often
Another important component is the concept of a sales funnel. This This is a topic for another post, but a sales funnel is a way to take a new customer through a sales process allowing them to add more products to their ‘cart’ immediately.
More to come on this topic! Stay tuned.