What is affiliate marketing?

Illustration: Suppose you have a friend who sells ladies’ shoes. Then this friend tells you that if you bring her some of your other friends to buy from her, for every item they buy, she will give you a share of her profit. This arrangement is what constitutes affiliate marketing.

In its simplest form, affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products for commissions.

This means that you know a person (or a company) with a great product, then you also know where there are potential buyers of such a product. You then simply connect these two groups of interested parties and out of that connection, you make some commissions (a share of the profit).

In this relationship, everyone benefits; the product owner gets a new customer, the product buyer gets a solution to his problem, and you, the affiliate, make some income; a win-win-win situation.

Affiliate Marketing Practical Lessons

Enough about the theory behind affiliate marketing; onwards into some practicals; so I want us to engage in some practical activities for you to understand this better.

The 5 Questions An Affiliate Marketer Should Ask First

First things first, some questions you need to answer as you get started;

1. You need to identify the product you want to promote

2. You need to know how much the product pays you as a commission per sale

3. You need to know how you will be paid (mode of payment)

4. You need to know when you will be paid. You don’t want to promote a product blindly.

5. Finally, you need to know how you will ensure you get paid for your referrals.

Example – Affiliate Sales Process

To take care of this in our example activity, we will use Tambaa.org as our product source (a totally selfish move but the best way to teach you the back end, as well as the front end activities). You can, however, apply these same techniques and lessons on any other affiliate product promotion.

At Tambaa, we will have products listed on the shop, the courses and the services pages. You can actually go to tambaa.org/shop/ and you’ll see one such product (I’ll pick black seeds for this). This is what I want us to promote in our example for commissions.

The Answers

So, question 1 is answered; we will promote black seeds. All you need is to research and learn a little more about this product.

Question 2: How much does it pay? The product black seed pays a flat rate commission of Kshs 100 per 200g packet sold at 600. So, if you sell 10 such packets in a day, you make 100×10= 1000/- that day.

Question 3: How does it pay? Tambaa pays via Mpesa or PayPal. You pick your most convenient option. Ensure that you have your choice option account set up (for instance, if you go with PayPal make sure you have a verified PayPal account created).

Question 4: When do you get paid? Tambaa pays every Friday of the week. So you can get your payments for the week at the end of that week.

Question 5: How do you ensure you get paid? For Tambaa, you simply ensure that you create an affiliate account on the Tambaa.org platform. You do this by going to tambaa.org/affiliate-area/ and signing up as an affiliate. Then take the product page link that you wish to promote and generate a direct affiliate link to it. That’s the link you share with potential customers.

Now just click on the ‘affiliates’ page link on the site (either at the top menu section of the site or at the very bottom menu items.). It should take you to your affiliate area (or prompt you to sign in) where you can see your affiliate link.

Next, simply copy that link and use it to tell other people (the potential customers) about the product. Once a person gets interested in the product and clicks on the link, they will be directed to the product page where they can buy the product. As soon as they make the purchase, you get credited for the sale and earn your commission.

How easy was that?

Now, I know you are asking yourself, how do I tell people about this product?

It’s easy; social media and search engines. Depending on how serious an affiliate you want to become, you can set up an online asset that talks about the products that you want to promote, then rank this on the search engines (SEO) and have people automatically being redirected to your product page, via your affiliate link, for commissions.

You can also set up paid ads on social media or Google. These also help automate the process of preselling and converting potential customers without the need to talk to anyone directly.

We will be putting up a whole training module on how to market online so keep an eye out for this one on our website. Make sure you subscribe for updates so that you get prompted via email when the training is ready.

Final Words

In summary, affiliate marketing is as simple as this; you identify awesome products from other people that you can help sell. Then you tell the potential buyers about it. Finally, you direct them to where they can buy the items and you make a commission out of this.

It’s one of the easiest income streams online if you are able to identify great niches and also learn how to automate the process. This way, you can have multiple affiliate products that you are promoting at the same time.

Don’t forget to register as a Tambaa Affiliate to earn massive commissions from our products and services (we even have products that will earn you commissions up to $200 a pop! Keep it here for details)

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