How to Become an Affiliate Marketer ? - Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming an Affiliate Marketer 2024

If you are a blog writer, digital marketer, or want-to-be entrepreneur, then you surely must have heard about the term "Affiliate Marketing". Well, this marketing tactic can help you to make money anytime, from anywhere, even while you are sleeping. Want to know how? Read this article to know How to become an Affiliate Marketer ...

What is Affiliate Marketing?

• Affiliate marketing is an online sales method that allows a brand to increase its sales by letting an affiliate (person) earn a commission for recommending the product to its target audience through its blogs or other promotional platforms.
• To be precise, Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which an online retailer (or product owner) pays a commission to an external website for sales or traffic generated from its referrals.
• However, most retailers/brands pay the affiliates as per sales and less frequently by clicks, impressions, or traffic.
• There are so many popular Bloggers, influencers, content creators, and digital marketers who have become millionaires by monetizing their web traffic through affiliate marketing.
• You may or may not want to become a full-time “Affiliate Marketer” but it's always a good source to add to your “side-hustle” as a passive income source.
• If the concept of “Affiliate Marketing” is new to you but you want to explore it further, we know what you are searching for.

In this article, we have also answered your question- How to start affiliate marketing for beginners? , Just have some patience and take a minute to read this complete article…

Benefits of Becoming an Affiliate Marketer:

Now that you know the how affiliate marketing works, it would be easier for you to understand the benefits of Affiliate marketing:

Passive Income: There are many ways to make money online, affiliate marketing is one of the best and most effortless ways of earning money online. In affiliate marketing, you just don't need to do the actual selling, all you need to do is promote the product and persuade your audience to buy the product using your affiliate link.

Unlike other jobs that require consistency and long hours of hard work, with affiliate marketing, you only need to set up an impressive campaign or content and if your audience gets convinced enough to purchase the product, you will earn a commission.

Earn from Multiple Channels: You can use various channels such as social media platforms, email lists, and website articles to promote your affiliated products.

Cost-Effective: Most affiliate programs do not charge any sign-up fees, you just need to sign-up for the affiliate program, promote the product and start earning on each sale you make. 

No expertise is Required: The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you don't need to be a tech expert to become an affiliate marketer. Basic knowledge of digital marketing, SEO, or Social media will do just fine.

Convenient and Flexible: As an affiliate marketer you don't need to stick to any one affiliate program, you can sign up for multiple affiliate programs and campaigns. If you are someone who is not into working in a 9 to 5 job, then affiliate marketing is the best full-time profession for you. As an affiliate marketer, you can work remotely on your own terms.

How to become an Affiliate Marketer?

So, there are many candidates who ask us if Affiliate Marketing can help them to build a great career. Well, Affiliate Marketing is the next big thing on the internet and there are many influencers, and content creators who are making a huge income by using affiliate marketing as one of their side hustles.

So how to become an affiliate marketer in India? To become an Affiliate Marketer, just follow these six simple steps:

1. Choose a Niche
2. Evaluate the market demand of your Niche and Analyze the competition in that particular Niche
3. Find the best Affiliate Programs and register Yourself to obtain the affiliate link
4. Pick your Affiliate Marketing Methods (Blogs/social media platforms or websites)
5. Create and Post highly effective content to promote your affiliated products
6. Get Commission every time someone makes a purchase using your affiliate link

Ok, so these steps seem to be very easy to read or write however it is a complex process.

If you want to know how to become an affiliate marketer in India, please read all the steps mentioned in this article. You can follow all these steps to become an Affiliate Marketer in India:

Choose a Profitable Niche:

Every Blog Writer, Content Creator or Digital Marketer usually has a particular niche, a field in which they try to influence their audience. It can be anything, beauty, lifestyle, food, healthcare, tech, fashion, etc. You need to choose a similar niche for affiliate marketing. Choosing a Niche is the first step of Affiliate Marketing and if it goes wrong, it will be harder for you to sell the products.

How to Find a Profitable Niche for Affiliate Marketing?

Ok, so many people have asked us “How to make money with Affiliate Marketing?” Well, Affiliate Marketing is not a hard and fast process. First, you have to start by choosing a profitable niche for your affiliate marketing.

This is what you should do to find a profitable niche for Affiliate Marketing:

• Consider your interests and expertise areas
• Determine Potential Monetization Options within the Niche
• Assess the Search Volume of the shortlisted Niches and assess the competition level
• Determine whether your chosen niche has a diverse range of traffic sources available
• Provide superior content and beat your competitors by providing extra information
• Check for Previously sold Niches and their profit acquisition
• Determine what your USP (Unique selling point) will be and how you will stand out from the competitors of your niche

Evaluate The Market Demand Of Your Niche and Analyze The Competition In That Particular Niche:

To evaluate the market demand, you can always use the Google Keyword Planner Tool. This tool will allow you to check out the search volume of any particular keyword and how many searches are being made per month, how much competition is there competing to be on the top of the search results etc.

All these things will give you a clear indication of the potential demand for your niche.

Analyzing your competitor's affiliate marketing strategies, content, and ad campaigns will give you an edge over the competition. The more competition will be there in the niche of your affiliate marketing, the higher will be the opportunities for you to learn from your competitors.

With so many well-performing competitors in your niche, you'll get plenty of sources of ideas that will help you to hone your marketing skills.

Find the best Affiliate Programs and register Yourself to obtain the affiliate link:

Once you select a suitable niche that has a high demand in the market, then you can proceed to the next step i.e finding the right affiliate program. Remember that finding the best affiliate programs is the key to success in Affiliate marketing.

There are a plethora of affiliate programs available online that pays you a high commission. But how to find the best affiliate programs for your niche?

Refer to the tips mentioned below:

Search on Google: Open the Google search engine and search for "Affiliate marketing program" with "name of your niche" or you can search for "affiliate marketing program" with "name of a product you want to promote". The rest will be taken care of by Google. It will display the best affiliate programs in India or internationally available for your niche.

Affiliate Directories: There are various websites where the owners/managers of affiliate programs list themselves to get better visibility. Search on google for "Affiliate directories" and you will find the listing of various affiliate programs sorted by the niche or type of commissions.

Look for Competing Products: Find a product that you are interested to promote, visit the website of that product and its competing products to check if there is an affiliate program available or not. If you are a blogger, you can write a comparison article between your affiliated product ad its competitors. Such articles put a great impact on your readers' perceptions and choices.

Find Affiliate Links from your Competitor’s help: If you are a digital marketer or a blogger, you can find the links to high-paying affiliate programs on your competitor’s website. If you are a website owner/blogger, enter your website in a competitor analysis tool such as SEMrush, This will provide you a list of the competitor websites. Visit these competitor websites and search for the affiliate links they use. Open the link and check the name of the affiliate program.

List of Best Affiliate Programs in India:

If you are a wanna-be-affiliate marketer in India, then here are some suggestions for you to choose from the Best Affiliate programs in India:

• Flipkart Affiliate
• Amazon Associates
• Reseller Club
• BigRock Affiliate
• vCommission
• Yatra Affiliate
• DGM India
• Hostgator Affiliate
• Admitad
• Optimize
• CJ Affiliate
• Cuelinks
• Sovrn Commerce
• Rakuten Marketing
• Shopify Affiliate

Pick your Affiliate Marketing Methods (Blogs/social media platforms or websites):

Once you find a suitable affiliate program, the next step is to choose an affiliate marketing method. You can use social media platforms, ad campaigns, PPC, or any other digital marketing method to promote your affiliated product.

Some of the best Affiliate Marketing Promotion Methods and Techniques which you can use to promote your affiliated products are mentioned below:

• PPC (Pay per Click)
• Social Media tools such as Instagram and Facebook
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Youtube Videos
• Email Marketing
• Coupons
• Webinars
• Review Posts

Create and Post Highly Effective Content to Promote your Affiliated Products:

If you are a blogger or a digital marketer, then you must have heard the phrase "Content is King", well it surely is. You can create very informative and impressive content and post it in your blog post and persuade your users to buy your affiliate product.

Your content can be as simple as this article or as entertaining as an Instagram viral trend. It's completely up to you, how you want to promote your affiliated product. Usually, people promote their affiliate links by using email marketing, blog posting, video content, or ad campaigns.

Below we have mentioned the types of content you can generate to promote your affiliate products.

Types of Content for Affiliate Marketing:

Most people get confused when it comes to choosing the content type they need to publish to target their audience. So here are the type of content which best for affiliate marketing:

• Product Reviews
• Product Comparisons
• Email Marketing
• Resource Pages
• Tutorials
• Ebooks
• Gift Guides
• Affiliate Landing Pages
• Videos (Reels, IGTV and Facebook Live)
• Buyer's Guides
• Social Media Posts
• Curations (Collection of particular products)
• Deals and Coupons

How to create content that sells your affiliate marketing products?

• Create Mobile-Friendly Content
• Use High-quality Images and Videos in your content
• Use Banners and Back Links to Drive Traffic on your website content
• Use SEO to rank your content
• Create a sense of urgency among your audience for that product

Get Commission Every Time Someone Makes a Purchase using your Affiliate Link:

Once you are done with creating content or ad campaigns for your affiliate products. All you have to do is to get traffic on your website by using various tricks.

Once you start generating traffic and building a good audience, you will automatically start getting clicks on the affiliate links mentioned in your blog posts and social media ads/posts.

Every time someone makes a purchase using your affiliate link, you will get a commission from your affiliate. The percentage of commission you will make is completely based on the type of affiliate program you’ve registered for.

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners 2024:

Below we have mentioned the names of the 5 best Affiliate Marketing Programs for Beginners:

• Amazon Associates
• ClickBank Associates
• eBay Affiliate
• Commission Junction
• Rakuten Affiliate

How to become an affiliate marketer for Amazon?

Amazon Affiliate Program is one of the most popular affiliate programs in India. People who are beginners in Affiliate marketing can easily sign up for Amazon Associates which is an affiliate marketing program by Amazon.

The sign-up process is very easy but before applying to the Amazon affiliate program or any other affiliate program, it is better to have a live website. If you've just created a fresh website, you might need to publish some high-quality original posts on it before submitting your Amazon associates application.

Follow the below-mentioned steps to become an affiliate marketer for Amazon:

Step 1: Create a website or a blog. If you already have a well-established website or blog, you don't need to create a new website

Step 2: Now visit the Amazon Associates Homepage and Click on "Sign Up"

Step 3: Enter your details in the account information section.

Step 4: Enter your website address

Step 5: Then enter your preferred store ID

Step 6: Explain what are tricks and methods you use to drive traffic to your website

Step 7: Choose your payment method

Step 8: Then generate your affiliate links

How to become an affiliate marketer on Instagram?

Below we have mentioned some steps to becoming an affiliate marketer on Instagram:

Step 1: Switch to a creator account

To become an affiliate marketer on Instagram, you have to switch your Instagram account to a creator account.

Follow the given steps:

• Open your Instagram account.
• Go to the settings.
• Now, select the account option.
• Tap "Switch to Professional Account" and then select the Creator option.
• Now choose the name of the category that is related to your affiliate niche.
• Fill your contact details in.

Step 2: Choose the Affiliate Partners

To earn from Instagram, you have to find the brands that pay commission on the sales you make. There are two ways in which you can start earning:

Affiliate Marketing Programs: Mostly brands in all the niches want their products to be promoted among their target audience. For this, they launch various affiliate programs, where they pay their affiliates commission for each sale made through their promotional methods.

Some of the most popular programs in India are Amazon Associates, Shopify, and eBay Partner Network.

Affiliate networks: These are the affiliate marketing platforms such as Rakuten, CJ Affiliate, etc. that allow you to generate custom links, track your commissions, and receive payments from a single dashboard.

Step 3: Influence People through your content and Promote your affiliate products

Instagram affiliate marketing is all about engaging the audience with your quality content and persuading them to buy the product by promoting it in your content. Your content should bring value to your audience, then only you will be able to influence them.

Once you start posting something of great user interest, your Instagram followers will start booming and you will achieve a larger segment of the audience to target to promote your affiliated products.

According to the latest research, it has been found that the Instagram influences who have atleast 10K followers can demand atleast 190 dollars for their sponsored post.

Tips for Instagram Affiliate Marketing:

• Label your Instagrams posts displaying affiliated products as a paid partnership
• Create an Instagram Affiliate Storefront where you can display your affiliated products OR  You can also mention the affiliate link on your Instagram profile bio
• Create an Instagram story highlight section for displaying discount codes and other details of your affiliated products
• Record and post product demonstrations on your profile
• Use appropriate and relatable hashtags to expand your post reach
• Keep tracking your affiliate performance. An Instagram creator account gives you access to the analytical features, insights, etc.

Signing Off:

In this article, we have covered the basic information about how to become an affiliate marketer. If you have decided to start affiliate marketing, don't expect instant results. And do not expect a huge income for a while, Affiliate marketing takes a lot of time and the good results are not always consistent.

Sometimes you may earn well and some months you won't. So don't rely entirely on affiliate marketing to quit your regular 9 to 5 job. The fact is undeniable that Affiliate marketing is great for generating a passive income but there is another thing that it doesn't guarantee anything.

Just focus on engaging your audience and develop a base for your affiliate marketing but do not rely solely on your affiliate programs to provide for your livelihood.