The popularity of Affiliate Marketing has been steadily growing for a while, and it shows no signs of slowing down. This is not surprising, since the idea of being able to earn passive income by marketing third-party products and services is exceptionally tempting and attractive. The concept of Affiliate Marketing tends to be so successful due to the fact it is profitable for each side – companies drive sales and establish online revenue, at the same time, affiliates earn commissions for their efforts to promote and sell the company products. Whether you are new to the whole Affiliate Marketing idea or you are planning to expand your approach, we have prepared some essential tips for you that can help you boost the efficiency of your strategy.

How does Affiliate Marketing Work

Affiliate Marketing is formed by three parties involved in the process – merchant, publisher, and consumer.

• The merchant is the vendor, creator, seller, or retailer of the products or services that are being marketed. The merchant can be anyone from a global conglomerate to a local startup company or even an individual – as long as they have an active Affiliate Program and products to be promoted. In return, they offer a commission for each successfully realized sale by the affiliate.
• The publisher, also known as an affiliate, is an individual or a company promoting the merchant’s products to potential customers to persuade them of the product value and convince them to buy it. Upon successful conversion, the publisher is granted with an affiliate commission. The Affiliate Marketing niche has the potential of generating from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars in commissions.
• The consumer is the potential customer that is being targetted by the affiliate marketer.  The group of customers being targetted is typically based on specific criteria of interests relevant to the product in question. Upon a consumer conversion, the affiliate is granter the respective commission offered by the merchant.

There are three general types of Affiliate Marketing – Unattached Affiliate Marketing, Related Affiliate Marketing, and Attached Affiliate Marketing.

• Unattached Affiliate Marketing – It is also known as Pay-per-Click Affiliate Marketing. Typically implies an Advertisement Campaign triggering the affiliate link and presenting it to users with the intention of enticing them into buying the product. Considering this type of marketing does not require any work put into building an online reputation and gaining customers’ trust, it is quite attractive to affiliates who do not want to invest time and effort. While it does not require any presence or authority, this strategy also does not tailor the target group of users to precise criteria. It does not guarantee the success of the ads campaign and return of the funds invested into the drive. Furthermore, this type of marketing might interfere with the policy of the merchant, so if this is your plan, you have to ensure it complies with their rules.
• Related Affiliate Marketing – This type of Affiliate Marketing generally takes the form of placing ads on websites or social media channels for products that are related to your niche, but you are not personally familiar with. This approach requires a fair online presence, reputation, and authority to attract potential referrals. It is a reasonable strategy, as the products you are promoting are related to your primary target audience. Anyhow, there is still a slight risk of promoting services you have not personally tested, and you are not entirely confident in their quality.
• Attached Affiliate Marketing – This is genuinely the most well-built Affiliate Marketing strategy. You are promoting products you are personally familiar with, thoroughly tested them, and believe in their value. Compared to the previous two methods, with Attached Affiliate Marketing, affiliates are targetting highly tailored user groups tightly related to their content. This strategy is based on building a substantial online presence and authority based on users’ trust. While it is the most successful one, granting the best conversion rates, as you might guess, it requires a lot of work and efforts put into developing a robust online appearance, high SEO ranking, and effective marketing.

Affiliate Marketing Strategies to Employ in 2020

While there is a common belief that generating a passive income from Affiliate Marketing is quick and easy, in reality, things are not that simple. If you are after the “make money while you sleep” idea, you will need to put some hard work before you get to this stage. To be a successful affiliate requires a lot more than sharing your affiliate link here and there and expect users to go ahead and buy the product you are promoting.

First and foremost, like with everything else you expect to profit from, you need to perform careful research and determine the most suitable niche for you individually. There are a few key factors to determine:

• You need to decide on the size of the Merchant. Naturally, you might think more prominent and well-known brands will be easier to promote, but there is always a “but”, right? It would help if you kept in mind that the competition will be way more aggressive compared to a newer brand that is still is the process of getting established.
• Select a suitable affiliate niche. The best practice is to find a broad and popular category and tighten the niche as much as possible.
• After you select the desired niche, you need to research how profitable it is. It is pointless to invest your time and efforts into something you cannot earn a reasonable profit from.
• It would help if you determined whether the product(s) you are planning to market are related to your target audience. It is evident that if you are promoting a product, which not of interest to your users, there will be low to none conversion.
• You have to research the competition in the desired niche. You can use the Google Keyword Planner tool for this purpose. You need to specify the keyword related to your niche and analyze the results of traffic and level of competition.

To become a successful affiliate marketer, keep a steady position, and constant income, you have to focus on several essential elements that have a significant impact in 2020.

• Establish a solid online presence in one specific niche. Instead of focusing on many different areas, you can dedicate your efforts to one, which allows you to promote various products. This will allow you to precisely tailor your audience and ensure better conversion. If you rely on organic traffic rather than running Ads campaigns, you need to focus on your content, keywords, and SEO ranking. Considering nowadays, users tend to perform long-tail keyword searches for particular products and services, you may attract the targetted audience.
• Stay informed and ahead with current trends. The Affiliate Marketing field is getting more and more compatible. Being on top of trends with the predominant marketing strategies and techniques will grant your competitiveness and ensure high conversions and profit. You need to ensure you are compliment with the current regulations and requirements. For example, GDPR (General Data Processing Regulation), which controls how personal data is being processed in the EU, requires affiliates to collect user data by opt-in consent. Therefore, you need to be sure of complete transparency and always keep your Privacy Policy up-to-date.
• Test and review products. It is always easier to promote a product or service you have personally examined, and you believe in its value and quality. Besides, this puts the ground for customers’ trust and personal approach.  The well-established and proven practice is to construct a detailed review of every aspect of the product or service and present it to readers. Being entirely clear and honest about the pros and cons of the product is vital if your goal is to gain loyalty.
• Use multiple marketing channels. Instead of relying only on your website, email campaign, or social media, you need to focus on strengthening them and combining them. While this requires time, it significantly increases your audience and your revenue.

Why Join HostArmada Affiliate Program

HostArmada offers a competing, multi-tier Affiliate Program with free sign-up, competitive commission rates, starting bonus, monthly payouts, real-time tracking, and dedicated account manager.

• Among the Highest Commissions in the field – HostArmada offers one of the highest commissions in the Web Hosting sphere. From an entry commission of $50/sale for Shared Hosting up to $200/sale for a Dedicated CPU Hosting.
• Performance-Oriented Affiliate Program – With a multi-tiered system the more you sell, the more you earn. You will get rewarded with a higher commission per sale for your efforts to bring more customers.

• Extended Cookie Lifetime – HostArmada’s Affiliate Program is based on cookie tracking. To ensure the most effective affiliate results, HostArmada offers a 90-day cookie lifetime, so you do not lose any sales.
• Intuitive Dashboard – For real-time tracking of clicks and sales, HostArmada provides a dedicated and user-friendly Dashboard, under which you can find detailed reports.
• Short Withhold Period – Due to the 45-Day Money-Back Policy for shared hosting plans, the commissions are withheld before approval.
• On-time Monthly Payment – For affiliates’ convenience HostArmada offers automatic monthly payments, eliminating the need for manually requesting payouts.
• Dedicated Affiliate Manager – Each affiliate is assigned to an affiliate manager, who ensures you are well-aware of every detail concerning the state of your commissions and payouts.

Conclusion

The advantages of Affiliate Marketing are unarguable – the idea of generating passive income with low investment and risk, while working from home and managing your own schedule is really tempting. You are in full control of the time and effort you will put into becoming a successful affiliate and the amount of your earning. If you manage to imply robust strategies and follow the tips we have provided in this article, you have a high chance of retaining your audience and convert them from readers to potential customers.