Today, as a result of the popularization of the concept of influencers and the cooperation of brands with influencers, we often encounter product-sharing situations in our daily lives. Affiliate Marketing is a type of marketing that occurs with the sharing and recommendation of the products or services we see.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing can be defined as a process where an affiliate earns a commission for marketing the products of another person or company. So, what is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business or organization rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer resulting from their marketing efforts.

People who do Affiliate Marketing earn as much as the product sold or per click every time they bring a customer to the organization. As a result, the bigger your audience, the bigger your earnings can be.

This marketing method generally aims to generate sales through e-commerce sites, marketplaces, applications or social media accounts. In affiliate marketing, a commission is paid to those who perform the marketing for the actions that turn into sales.

Advantages of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is of most interest to people because it can provide a good profit. They can make significant profits with a very low-cost advertising method. In this method, the person who creates the advertisement continues to earn continuously on a commission basis. At the same time, the company can make serious gains in areas such as potential customers, clicks, and sales. So, there is a mutual gain situation.

Working with more than one company

One of the most significant advantages of affiliate marketing is that you are not dependent on any single company because it is an entirely commission-based system. Affiliate marketing allows you to work for multiple companies and earn commissions from each separately.

24/7 Income Generation Opportunity

In Affiliate Marketing, you are not dependent on a person or organization, nor are you dependent on a computer. Users can buy the product you are marketing at any hour, so you can make money even while you sleep.

Customer support does not take place on your side

One of the most significant advantages of affiliate marketing is that you are not responsible for any transaction related to the product. The manufacturer brand is fully responsible for situations such as product sales, cancellation and return.

Easy to Participate

Affiliate Marketing, a type of marketing that is easy to participate in, allows you to earn income by working remotely and 24/7. Some businesses may have different criteria. Although it seems easy to participate, businesses offer many agreement conditions. Affiliate marketing, which has caused reactions with its popularization today, has recently been subjected to various audits.

Low Initial Cost

 You will not need any capital when starting affiliate marketing. You don't usually have to pay to join an affiliate program. It's all about how many products you can sell. This is why it is much easier to get started than other businesses.

Performance Based Rewards

You can earn a performance-based income through affiliate marketing. Your skills are important at this point. By creating engaging campaigns and increasing your website traffic, you can make the product you sell visible and boost your sales performance. It all depends on your performance and your ability to attract attention.

Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing

If we want to specify the disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing;

• Takes Time: Having organic followers is the most important factor for affiliate marketing. In order to make money by doing affiliate marketing, you need to have a serious number of followers, especially on the social media platform requested by the business, and it is a time-consuming situation to get this audience.
• You have to be good at marketing: You don't need special training to do affiliate marketing, but you do need to be good at marketing if you want to be successful.
• There are advertising limitations: Some affiliate programs may have advertising restrictions, such as not allowing email marketing or only using PPC ads with certain keywords.
• Payment requirements: Most affiliate programs only pay you when you make a certain amount of sales.

How to Do Affiliate Marketing?

If we come to the question of how to do affiliate marketing? In fact, it is possible for anyone who has a network to do affiliate marketing. People who can do affiliate marketing have social media accounts with many followers, influencers, YouTubers, etc., and can get interaction.

In order to do Affiliate Marketing, you will need a channel to explain your products or services. This channel can be a website or a social media account. People with many followers on popular channels such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube earn money with affiliate marketing and influencer marketing activities.

It's worth noting that only some accounts or people with a high number of followers can make a good profit from affiliate marketing. If your interaction with your followers is high, that is, if they trust your ideas and likes, if you have established a sincere bond between you, your sales will be higher.

The most significant investment in Affiliate Marketing is your time.

How to start Affiliate Marketing?

Choose Your Target Audience

Finding a niche is the first step. Your hobbies, lifestyle, and technology depend on which area you want to be in. Offering different products of different types does not make you reliable. Therefore, you should find a niche and produce content in this field.

We need to choose our target audience. Who do we create content for?

Choosing an affiliate program is the next step.

The next step is to choose which affiliate program to join. It will make sense for you to choose an affiliate program or affiliate products that fit your niche.

Determine the Products You Will Promote

For example, let's consider a yoga instructor. This yoga instructor can give more credibility by sharing products related to the supplements, materials, and ingredients he uses in his field.

Determine the Influencers You Will work with

Choosing an influencer is like choosing a brand face. Choosing an influencer with characteristics that match the brand identity and personality and paying attention to the target audience of the influencer are among the factors you should pay attention to when choosing an influencer for your brand. When choosing an influencer, you should pay attention to the harmony between the person's interests and your brand.

Highlight Your Products and Services

Since this affiliate marketing is aligned with their content, they can earn affiliate income by promoting products they believe in.

You have to choose a platform.

There are many free platforms for content creation. Instagram, blogging, and YouTube are just simple examples. If you think you need followers on your social media account, you just need to appeal to the right audience to make money. Many affiliate marketers make their income entirely from social media.

Creating content is the biggest reason to be trusted.

Once you have decided which platform you want to be on, your next step is to create content that your target audience will trust you for. This is one of the best strategies for marketing. Try to produce quality content that adds something to your audience. This will make it easier for you to grow.

Examples of the most popular affiliate marketing programs are;

Affiliate marketing programs;

• Amazon Associates
• eBay Partners
• Shopify Affiliate
• Google AdSense.

Track your Affiliate Project

The affiliate's task is to make the product attractive to the consumer and persuade them to buy it. Affiliates can appeal to many audiences or offer products for specific audiences.

Things to Consider in Affiliate Marketing

Suppose you are going to receive publicity through your website. In that case, you should pay attention to the quality of your content, SEO optimization and the use of social media in order for these promotions to reach more people.

In summary, as mentioned above, affiliate marketing is the promotion and sale of products of brands or individuals by affiliates. Affiliate marketing has been a preferred method for years for reasons such as being an easy way to make money online, being flexible, and not imposing any responsibility on the affiliate.