If you are not aware, affiliate marketing refers to the process in which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing an individual or company’s products.

It benefits the affiliate as he or she gets to earn revenue every time a sale is made for the product being promoted. And it benefits the people or companies selling the products because they get to market their goods, grow their brand recognition, and make more sales.

Let us take a closer look at how affiliate marketing works and what makes it lucrative.

Affiliate Marketing Sellers

Affiliate marketing sellers range from large corporations to individual vendors. They could sell any kind of product, from educational tutorials to household goods. For example, you could operate an e-commerce drop shipping business and want to find ways of getting your products in front of new audiences. You would then simply partner with an affiliate who is able to get your brand and products in front of a large audience.

The affiliate makes money every time someone clicks on a link and makes a purchase. And the seller makes money from selling their products.

Affiliates

The affiliate can be an individual person or a company.

The affiliate markets the seller’s products in an appealing way to their audience to help persuade people to buy the products.

Often, affiliates have a specific audience, so they partner with sellers who have products that suit their niche.

For instance, you could operate a WordPress site that wants to find success in a business such as affiliate marketing, and therefore add affiliate plugins to your website. Every time someone clicks on a link and makes a sale, you would take a cut.

Types of Affiliate Marketing

Whether you are a seller or an affiliate, if you want to make a success of affiliate marketing, you need to know about the three types of affiliate marketing: unattached, involved, and related.

Unattached affiliate marketing: With unattached affiliate marketing, the affiliate marketer has no connection to the products being promoted, nor does the affiliate have experience or authority in the product niche.

Most unattached affiliate marketing methods involve running pay-per-click marketing campaigns using affiliate links.

Involved affiliate marketing: To get products in front of target audiences, sellers’ partner with affiliates via involved affiliate marketing. That means the affiliates have tried the products they are promoting themselves and therefore have the authority to make claims about those products.

Often, involved affiliate marketing involves affiliates promoting types of products that they and their target audience already have an interest in.

Instead of relying on pay-per-click ads, involved affiliate marketers use their personal experiences with products in their marketing efforts to persuade people to purchase the items.

Related affiliate marketing: Related affiliate marketing sits in the middle of unattached affiliate marketing and involves affiliate marketing. The affiliates do not necessarily use the products, but they are somehow related to the niche audience that is relevant to the products.

For instance, influencers who post about fitness equipment, and therefore have a ready audience for fitness-related products, could promote a seller’s home gym equipment to their audience.

The key advantage of this type of affiliate marketing is the affiliate has the necessary expertise to generate traffic.

What makes Affiliate Marketing Lucrative?

The above information should go some way to informing you how lucrative affiliate marketing can be for both sellers and affiliates.

For both parties, the crucial thing needed to generate sales is selecting the right partner.

Sellers need to partner with affiliates who have large followings or who have authority over certain types of products while affiliates need to find products that are suitable for their audience, and which can generate a good passive income.

Affiliate marketing is also beneficial and lucrative because there is a low barrier to entry and low risk.