By now, you would have been familiar with the saying “If the service is free, you are the product”. If THAT doesn’t strike a panic chord, here’s one in real simple terms:
You are making a lot of people richer every day, getting absolutely nothing in return.
Even without you even realizing it. And with the existence of social media? That makes it easier for people to make more and more money out of you.
Was gonna say that this makes you a digital hoe but heck, even them hoes are getting paid.
You ain’t.
You wonder how. You wonder if it’s even legal. (Yes, it is.)
If you have Facebook / Instagram / Twitter or have shopped online, you should be aware by now that the simple act of a click can make rich the advertisers, marketers, and any third parties involved in the sales funnel planning.
Here’s a familiar example.
Say you bought a dildo from Amazon because Kim from Pornhub told you to ‘CLICK ON THE LINK IN MY DESCRIPTION’ (and you’re a good boy/girl so you did). Kim makes $5 in commission from your purchase on Amazon. Now, if there were 100 good boys and girls watching Kim rock that stick, Kim would have made $500.
How?
Well, today you are going to learn about this same old strategy used by Internet marketers many years ago, which will stick around for a long time (pun not intended).
Today, I’ll be giving you a 5-min crash course on Affiliate Marketing.
By definition, Affiliate Marketing is a form of marketing where one promotes other people’s product and services, and in return earns commissions when a referral makes a purchase.
TL;DR – Word-Of-Mouth that pays money.
How does this work in the world of social media though? Here’s a good example below:
You stumbled upon a product you like. You think to yourself “OMG more people should know about this” because you think that the whole world should totally own it.
The best example of a product I can come up with right now is this thiccc stick called LifeStraw which can literally save your life.
With this wonderful LifeStraw thing, you can drink from ANY water source because of its ultra sophisticated filters that can transform even mud puddles to crystal clear, drinkable water. And the best part is, all of the proceeds earned from the sales of this magic wand go towards providing clean drinking water to children from the poorest countries.
It’s THE stick that makes 2018 such a great time to be alive.
(If you’re thinking about Kim’s stick, I’m disappointed in you.)
Back to the topic. Now, if you CLICKED on that LifeStraw link, we’ve made some bucks. #sneaky
But yeah, you get the point by now do you?
Now, pay attention because this is how you can do it too.
- Apply to be an affiliate member.
- Obtain a unique URL from them.
- If the link is a jumble of words, beautify it with Pretty Links.
For example, my link could be www.wickedmarketers.com/lifestraw
Now you got a nice presentable link. POST IT EVERYWHERE.
In your blog.
In your YouTube video description.
On your Facebook timeline.
On your Instagram caption.
Pin it on Pinterest.
Write a sales email with the link.
Write it on Reddit.
Write it on toilet doors while you take a shit.
Post it on blog comments.
Post it on Craiglist.
Answer Quora questions with it.
Answer your ‘entrepreneur’ friend involved in a Pyramid Scheme with this link. Show him the way. You have the link. The sky is the limit.
But but… who else is doing this Affiliate Marketing thing?
Wake up, it’s literally everywhere. I want you to notice the sheer amount of affiliate links that you would never realize if you haven’t stumbled upon my article.
Take Skyscanner as example number one. For every successful booking made on the website, they earn commissions from the airline or travel agents. Even if you CLICK on a product, they earn the commission because, for every action performed online, data is generated.
- Screenshot of Skyscanner’s official statement.
That’s for another day, let’s stick to more examples of Affiliate Marketing that your oblivious self has missed.
Example number two, emails. If you’ve received e-newsletters telling you to buy stuff so you don’t miss the discounts, and you CLICKED on the button and BOUGHT something, those guys who emailed you will earn commissions from your purchase.
The email is strategically crafted to sound like it’s written just for you. If you click on any of the links, you can bet your ass those are affiliate links to promote the writer’s product.
Example number three, blogs. If you’ve bought anything online, you would definitely Google for reviews. Here’s the catch tho, you can’t even tell if those reviews are genuine or simply trying to make commissions off of you.
These can come in many forms. Here are a few titles you might be familiar with:
- Top 10 Gifts For Her
- A Brutally Honest Review about Juicero
- Tai Lopez a scam?
Whatever it is, you will see an affiliate link that looks like this at the bottom left of your screen.
Buuuutttt if you don’t see it, chances are the article is trying to sell you something else, and the catchy blog title is simply a click bait!
The fourth example is… online coupons. When shopping online, some would Google for discount codes and deals. If you’ve done that, you’ll notice that sometimes, the codes are fake or do not work. Here’s why; there might be a sneaky affiliate link underneath the code. So when you bought the product on the website (with or without discount), the fake code provider makes some commissions.
The fifth example is product featuring. Did you know that even if you featured the lamest product on Amazon on your blog; something nobody would ever buy, you can also earn commissions? Because when your readers click on those links and get redirected to Amazon, and if they bought ANYTHING ELSE within 24 hours, you receive commissions for ALL of them.
Even if that reader didn’t buy the lame products you featured.
Here’s a great website that features Amazon stuff that people don’t really give two shits about.
https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/
Sometimes, the owner of the site can even earn commissions from purchases made within 90 days. Overall, Thisiswhyimbroke makes an estimated $20,000+ per month PURELY from Amazon’s Associate program; not including the profit earned from being affiliated with dozens of other companies.
OMG I should just quit my job and do this full time!
No bitch, don’t. I get the excitement but let’s talk about this another day. Stay in your current job, and enjoy this as passive income.
Now that you’ve grasped the essence of affiliate marketing, let’s get into some maths. Keep in mind that these are just rough estimations, but they are very realistic goals to aim for as beginners in terms of your revenue projection and how much to expect in commissions.
Let’s give you a nice product to be affiliated with as an example. Assuming Kim is selling an e-book on ‘How To Get Laid When You Still Live With Mom’. That e-book is sold at $50 retail price. You will enjoy a commission of 75%. That means, every time a lonely guy clicks on your link to buy Kim’s e-book, you get $37.50.
“Why is the commission so high?” you wonder.
Well, digital products (e-books, video courses, PDF, etc) are generally known to give super high commission payouts.
So no, this ain’t a scam. Now look at this table:
30 sales monthly (1 daily): $50 x 30 x 75% = $1,125
100 sales monthly: $50 x 100 x 75% = $3,750
300 sales monthly: $50 x 300 x 75% = $11,250
Basically, if 300 people (monthly) bought Kim’s e-book by clicking on your link, you earn $11,250 cash in your bank. Don’t let 300 SALES intimidate you. In fact, any e-commerce seller can tell you that it’s easy to achieve 300 sales every month.
Their (e-commerce seller) downside? They don’t even make that much, because physical products give out very little commission (Amazon only gives out 5% on average). If they sold 300 printed copies of Kim’s wisdom, they would have earned a meager $575 only.
Sucks to be them, eh.
What if some websites are downright dodgy and I don’t wanna make them rich?
Got your back on this one. Three steps to get around those links are:
(1) Open in Incognito mode so those dodgy-ass sites can’t track your cookies.
(2) Paste the link and press enter on the search bar. Remove the jumble of texts following the question mark </?>
(3) Copy the clean URL again and make your purchase on usual chrome mode without incognito
Great! I want to start this Affiliate Marketing thingy too!
Cool. Okay so, there are 4 channels you can dive into if you wanna start. Let’s go through the list; I’ve even included some pros and cons for you to save you the trouble.
Secure an email list.
Fairly easy to start with if you already own a website. Your landing page should be optimized to capture leads and bring in daily emails. You will see quick results in the beginning. However, it is pretty expensive to buy first-tier country emails upfront. The industry charges an average of $1 per opt-in email. Since you need at least 10,000 emails to start with to breakeven at a decent speed, your upfront cost is around $10,000. Also, if you spam like a bitch, your list will die off and that’s $10,000 down the drain.
Social Media – Facebook & Instagram Ads
It’s definitely costly to start. You see, even if you managed to promote your links to third world countries (where charges are cheaper), your audiences can’t afford to buy your products in USD. Meanwhile, promoting your links to first tier countries (USA, UK, Canada, Australia) cost a bomb. And unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’d have known that ORGANIC IS DEAD (Facebook’s throttle reaches only 2% of your fans organically, so ew, no).
Youtube Videos
The good news is, videos are proven to be the most effective method in engaging your audiences. If you’re lucky and your content is cool enough, it can really go viral. Like Jay Shetty. The downside? Nobody cares to watch videos of a ‘nobody’ unless your content is actually insightful and stands out from the competition. Even so, crafting quality video content is usually a result of this combination: years of experience, a strong network in the industry, decent gadgets, and out-of-the-box thinking.
Blogging
Blogging would be the most cost-effective and efficient way to ‘make it’ in affiliate marketing in the long run. Not only are you able to target specific keywords; you basically have total control of what audience you want to drive into your blog, no matter where they are in the world. There is no price discrimination like Facebook, and it can only get better monthly. As time goes by, your blog gradually climbs in rank as you feed it more content.
But you have to be patient with blogging though; it takes around 4 months to only start seeing sales trickle in. To counter this, you just have to be persistent and consistent, producing one quality blog post per week.
And you know what? I can teach you all about this method because it’s the exact same formula I used for my FIVE other blogs that are currently generating $1000/month EACH. Yeah, it may be difficult to start one blog post at first. But once you master it, you can replicate the same formula on even more blogs in every niche.
That’s it for today. Don’t be a digital hoe.
So by now, you should know WHAT is Affiliate Marketing, WHO’s onboard, WHY and HOW it works, and WHERE you can make your mark. The WHEN is on you.
Don’t take too long to decide, because results is all about taking action.
Don’t be cool with the idea that money is going into other peoples pocket, and not yours.
