How do newcomers and beginners start affiliate marketing?

Many friends are curious about affiliate marketing but don't know where to start. Affiliate marketing is a promotion method that can yield results in the medium and short term with a relatively small investment. If the product is competitive enough and the operator can spend 5 hours on affiliate marketing every day in the early stage, obvious results will be achieved within 2-3 months.

Essentially, the method of affiliate marketing is similar to influencer marketing. Both involve proactively contacting affiliates and publicly disclosing the way to join the affiliate program to increase the number of affiliates.

Famous Affiliate Marketing Platforms

Commonly used cross-border platforms include ShareASale, Awin, CJ, and Impact. Among them, ShareASale is preferred by many. Both big brands like DJI and small start-up brands like to use this platform.

The advantage of ShareASale is that its platform fee is relatively low, only 2%-3%. It adopts a recharge model, and commissions and platform fees are directly deducted from the recharged money in the account. The application process is relatively simple with no high thresholds, and it has a large number of affiliate resources.

Awin is related to ShareASale, and many brands use it. Generally speaking, it is similar to ShareASale, except for some differences in the operation background. It is also very convenient for merchants to settle in. Just pay a $1 settlement fee and fill in the information.

CJ is a relatively old affiliate marketing platform. Its background gives a feeling of the last century, and the operation is not very convenient. It is difficult to see specific details of each transaction. Like ShareASale, it also uses the recharge and deduction method to pay commissions and platform fees, with a platform fee of 3%. One advantage of CJ is that when your account balance is lower than $500, the official will send you an email to remind you to recharge.

If the balance is insufficient, the affiliate marketing can still continue. You can even owe tens of thousands of dollars. As long as you can pay the debt within 15 days of the account being in debt, your account will not be closed. Of course, if you fail to pay after the timeout, your affiliate program will be suspended, and you will not be able to access the background until you complete the payment.

Impact is an affiliate platform that has been popular among big brands in recent years. It has the same founder as CJ. After selling CJ, he re-established Impact. Compared to the previous three platforms, Impact has a team in the Chinese region, located in Shanghai. Members of the Shanghai team are involved in the entire settlement and subsequent operation process, which is convenient for communication and problem-solving.

At the same time, there are also a large number of affiliate guests settled in their platform. Currently, in addition to affiliate marketing, you can also do PR and KOL on it. It can be regarded as an all-inclusive platform.

Of course, it is not the best choice for many small merchants because the settlement fee and service fee are very expensive. Although the background functions are very complete, it is more suitable for medium and large-sized brands that have certain accumulations and revenues.

How to Do Affiliate Marketing

Essentially, affiliate marketing is no different from influencer marketing. The core is to find people to promote for you and then pay them service fees. The only difference is that one pays commissions after generating orders, and the other requires payment before cooperation.

For merchants with tight budgets or those who want to be promoted at a low cost, affiliate marketing is a good choice.

Step 1: Choose Your Niche Market

When choosing a niche market, this is the core category for you to create content and promote. The more specific the better. Avoid choosing overly broad categories such as "food", and instead choose more subdivided categories such as "barbecue". This helps to build a more precise fan/subscriber group.

To find the ideal niche market, you need to think about the following four questions:

What am I good at?
What do I like to do?
What am I curious about?
What do others tell me I'm good at? For example, a blogger based his marketing on his hobby-breakdancing and created content around this theme. Choosing a niche market related to personal interests can lay a solid foundation for successful affiliate marketing.

Step 2: Decide on the Content Platform

Choose the appropriate platform, including:

Websites
YouTube
Social media (such as Instagram, TikTok)
Newsletters
Podcasts No matter whether you choose to create a website, YouTube or other content platforms, please note to disclose the fact that your content contains affiliate links. Affiliate platforms require informing the audience when promoting to maintain income transparency. If it's a website, you can create a separate page or include it in the footer of the website; if it's on YouTube, you can make the relevant disclosure in the description. This helps build trust and comply with affiliate promotion regulations.

Step 3: Look for Affiliate Programs to Join

There are three main types of affiliate network marketing programs. You can choose the appropriate program based on your niche and professional level:

High Commission, Low Volume:

Suitable for niche products with fewer buyers, such as HubSpot, which sells to enterprises. This affiliate program offers generous rewards, such as 100% in the first month and 15% recurring commissions monthly.

Low Commission, High Volume:

For products with mass appeal, such as PS5 games. Amazon is an example. Although it only pays a maximum of 10% commission, it provides commissions based on the full value of the purchase, not limited to the products you recommend.

High Commission, High Volume:

For expensive products with mass appeal, such as credit cards. Such programs may attract affiliate marketers with deep expertise, financial resources and willingness to adopt black hat strategies (requires technology).
The choice depends on the niche and professional level. Using Google search or directly visiting the official website of the target product is an effective way to find affiliate programs.

Step 4: Create Excellent Content

The key to the success of your affiliate website lies in creating natural and high-quality content that naturally integrates affiliate links. Don't blindly choose Amazon's best-selling products. Instead, spend some time screening to ensure that your content can solve readers' problems. For example, if you do product reviews, you should even consider actually purchasing and testing. After using it for a period of time, provide your real review opinions.

Just like what Wirecutter did in their content. For example, when looking for the best air purifier, they tested more than 50 different products. This detailed testing and evaluation adds credibility to their content and explains the reason for their success. Therefore, spending time elaborately creating content and ensuring its quality and authenticity will help increase the attractiveness and trust of your affiliate website.

Step 5: Increase Traffic to the Affiliate Website

Having created excellent content, the next task is to attract more people to read and click on affiliate links. Consider the following three traffic strategies:

A. Paid Traffic: Pay for traffic through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The advantage is that you can get traffic immediately, but the disadvantages are that advertising costs may erode profits and traffic stops after you stop paying. For high-commission affiliate programs, paid traffic is a good choice, but it may not be wise for those who are not familiar with paid marketing or have no budget.

B. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Aims to optimize pages to rank high in search engines. By understanding the search habits of target customers and creating content around these topics, and obtaining or earning links to improve rankings, SEO can provide stable and passive traffic.

C. Build an Email List: Build an email list to communicate with readers at any time. Use emails to introduce new content to fans and prompt them to return to your website. Adding affiliate links in emails is an effective way, but it is necessary to ensure that the email content is valuable.

Step 6:Get Clicks on Affiliate Links

Even with amazing content, it doesn't mean people will click on affiliate links. In this process, the following points need to be considered:

A. How Links are Placed: Balance link placement with other factors. Avoid placing all links at the bottom of the page or setting every word in the introduction as a link.

B. Context: Insert links naturally in the article instead of taking them out of context. For example: "Today, I'm reviewing three different chef knives that you can buy on Amazon for under $50."

C. Labeling: Use labels such as buttons, tables and boxes to increase the chances of readers clicking on affiliate links.

For example, Wirecutter uses eye-catching boxes with product links when sharing preferred products.Good housekeeping adopts a different method and creates a table with buttons.

In this step, through reasonable link layout, contextual narration and eye-catching labeling, the chances of readers clicking on affiliate links can be increased.

Step 7: Convert Clicks into Sales

In affiliate marketing, achieving revenue requires two key conversions. The first conversion is clicking on the product page, which is completely controllable. You can increase the click-through rate through the aforementioned strategies.

The second conversion is when visitors purchase products. Merchants control the shopping cart and checkout process. By choosing affiliate programs and merchants with good conversion rates, understanding the target audience and product features, you can increase the chances of converting clicks into actual sales.

Use DICloak Antidetect browser to develop Affiliate Marketing business

Affiliate marketing requires leveraging multiple social media accounts to ensure stable advertising campaigns and effective product promotion. This strategy helps expand reach, increase exposure to target audiences, and leverage the unique characteristics and user demographics of different platforms for enhanced marketing outcomes.

DICloak Antidetect browser enables the creation of unique browser environments to securely manage multiple accounts, ensuring stable advertising campaigns. Additionally, advanced RPA scripts automate tasks, boosting overall efficiency for marketers.

We’ll walk you through the simple process of registering your account and creating a browser profile. Whether you’re a new user or just need a refresher, our easy-to-follow instructions will ensure you’re up and running in no time. Let’s get started to use DICloak Antidetect Browser to manage multiple Amazon accounts securely and effortlessly,leaving behind the worries of account suspension immediately！

1.Download DICloak

1.1.Installing DICloak, DICloak now is supported on Windows and MacOS operating systerm.

1.2.It is recommended to install DICloak on a non-system drive with a large capacity.

2.Registration

2.1.Sign up&Log in

After installing DICloak, you need to run the program and register a new account. To do this, simply enter your email address, create a password, and you will immediately enter your new account.

If you already have an account, you can log in immediately. Passwords can be remembered by default for easier access during subsequent logins.

3.Browser Profiles Setting

3.1.Create a Browser Profile

Click [Browsers] - [Profiles] - [Create profile]

3.2.Basic Information Setting

Profile name: Please customize the name for this browser profile
Remark: Not necessary
Profile group: Choose an existing group or create a new one
Browser: ChromeBrowser 120

Operating system: Select the operating systems based on your needs. Options include Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux. You can choose multiple options, but the system will choose one randomly from all the selected options for generation

User Agent: Select the user agent based on your needs, then click the arrow to generate the final result

Cookie: Not necessary

3.3.Proxy Setting

Please set the proxy used by the browser. DICloak support No Proxy(Direct Connection), HTTP Proxy, HTTPS Proxy, SOCKS5 Proxy, IPFLY (Dynamic Proxy). DICloak does not offer proxy purchasing services. If you need to configure a proxy, you will first need to purchase one from another proxy service provider before setting it up.

3.4.Account Information Setting

Select the platform you want to import, add your account and password, and save them.

3.5.Advanced Setting

Customize specific browser fingerprint information according to your needs, including language, interface language, timezone, geographic location, font list, WebRTC, and Canvas.