Given the pandemic has changed the way we all work and live, the work-from-home model has undeniably gained in popularity.  And the good thing about affiliate marketing is that you can do it from just about anywhere with a stable internet connection.

If you are a hard worker and want to be rewarded for your efforts, then this might be just a career for you.

Read on and we’ll show you why starting a career in affiliate marketing is really worth it right now, and what you will need to continue to be successful in this industry.

What is affiliate marketing?

A lot of you know your affiliate networks from your affiliate programs by now, but for the newcomers to the Zeropark blog, we define affiliate marketing simply as the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s products or services.

It’s your job as the affiliate to get as many interested people to perform a desired action when they come face to face with your offer page. That desired action can be a click, a sign-up process, or a purchase of products or services. You will then be repaid via a commission, which will vary depending on the terms of the affiliate agreement you have signed up to.

Some verticals, like e-commerce, payout on a revenue share model by which you will receive an agreed percentage of the customer’s checkout total. So, if someone pays $100 for your promoted products, and your agreed Revshare commission was 4%, you will get paid $4. That is after the affiliate network that you got the offer from, or the company selling the goods if you got your offer directly from the company’s affiliate program, track the conversions back to you. 

An alternative payout model would be the fixed payout method. This is the agreed-upon price for each customer that engages with your promoted ad, which is paid to you after the conversion is recorded and recognized as one leading back to you.

The way you decide to promote your affiliate offers is your choice and it can be done in a variety of different ways, across a variety of affiliate marketing channels.

Trying to get a better understanding of affiliate marketing? Read here!

Can you make money online with affiliate marketing?

That’s one of the most frequently asked questions for those wanting to get into the business and the short answer is yes. But you have to be focused to make a career in affiliate marketing.

It has been said that only the top 20% of affiliates in the industry are making a full-time income from it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be one of them. If you focus on the tips in this article you will be closer to achieving your dream of becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

Whether you make money with affiliate marketing depends on the niche you choose and how well you then tap into its audience, how thorough and precise you are with targeting and then optimizing your campaigns, how well you use all the available resources to aid your business and how focused you are on making your efforts successful. The last thing you will need is also a bit of luck but the opportunity is definitely there.

That’s why we suggest learning as much as you can. For example, getting insights about what it takes for an offer to be successful, which means research into your target niche and what content speaks to them, is one of the steps. Other tips would include following the methods used by super affiliates to gain insight into what really works in affiliate marketing and how they make it work by following their path to success.

The point is that it is possible to have a full-time affiliate marketing career and make enough money to live comfortably. And all the resources to do just that are out there, waiting to be picked.

Now, do you think you’ve got what it takes to make your affiliate marketing career happen?

Is it a get-rich-quick scheme?

No. Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. You can think of it in terms of being a sales job where your salary is solely commission. You only get paid when you make a sale for your third-party business. Businesses use affiliate marketers to promote their products or services quickly and cost-effectively and are often used as part of a larger marketing strategy.

Firstly, in a lot of cases, you have to wait to see a return on your investment. That’s because there is a lot of trial and error, which can be considered as an education into affiliate marketing, which means you won’t see successful campaigns right away. If it were that easy everyone would be doing it.

Secondly, although there may be some affiliates that do not follow the rules and run suspicious or scam content, they won’t last long. Most ad exchanges, if not all, have compliance teams in place ready to ban any scam content quickly.

And lastly, affiliate marketing is not a ‘scheme’ nor is it a scam. It is a multi-billion dollar market, and like any market, there are successful players and there are unsuccessful ones.

Affiliate marketing takes investment, time, and dedication to make it work. But that’s not to say that you can’t make money with it. You can, and you can make a lot of it if you stay focused and work hard to be successful.

How much money does an affiliate marketer actually make?

This is a question a lot of you want to know, however, due to the nature of this industry it is hard to put an exact number on it. This is because an affiliate marketer’s full-time income is not consistent. It is better if you view your income on an annual basis rather than a monthly one.

As a low-level affiliate marketer, you can make upwards of $100 per day. Although, in the long run, mid-level affiliates can earn anywhere from $300 per day to $1,000 per day or more. The sky’s the limit if you know what you are doing.

That brings us to the topic of the so-called super affiliates, the ones that are making the real money, $10,000 per day or more in this industry. Super affiliates are the big players with their own teams, they usually specialize in a particular niche that is making the biggest percentage of their profits.

Some examples of super affiliates are:

• Erik Gyepes – The true spirit of the beach affiliate marketer as Erik has moved to Thailand as a result of his success in the affiliate game. He was particularly successful with domain redirect traffic.
• Luke Kling – Founder of affLIFT forum (& previously PeerFly) who has helped thousands of affiliates reach their goals.
• Charles Ngo – Author of The Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing and the winner of STM affiliate marketing blog 2014. He claims to have tried nearly every vertical out there but his most profitable were on dating and gaming. Now he mostly runs his campaigns with paid traffic focusing on Facebook and mobile.
• Attila O’dree – Author of From Zero to Super Affiliate and founder of i Am Affiliate forum. He has been particularly effective in the nutra niche while running paid traffic campaigns.
• Ian Fernando – Member of the Affiliate Business Club networking community. Ian focuses on the financial vertical and getting the most out of affiliate programs.
• Will you be the next super affiliate?

Each one of these influencers has not simply limited themselves by having affiliate marketing offers as their only source of income, though. They are deemed as affiliate marketing gurus now which is also a part of their affiliate business. They offer courses, books, or other online resources to the affiliate community to share their knowledge and be rewarded for their efforts too. So, perhaps the secret to success in this affiliate marketing is to diversify your sources of income… right after following the gurus’ tried and tested tips.

Is affiliate marketing still profitable in 2022?

Yes, absolutely! As mentioned above, some people are making really big money with affiliate marketing. And others are able to make money, even if a bit less, with offers paying out even for single conversions. It is definitely possible to make a profit with affiliate marketing and there are many ways of doing so.

All that is required for success is an affiliate network or program supplying you offers, and a traffic source supplying you with traffic and the potential customers for your promoted products or services. After that, it is just a case of fine-tuning your campaigns to see which offers work for your audience. And remember to use a tracker to see where you are making your profit and where you need to focus on to prevent making a loss.

Sounds simple right?

Why is it a good business opportunity right now?

Much like that ancient Chinese proverb about planting a tree, the best time to get into affiliate marketing was a while ago, but the second-best time is right now.

When compared to starting a normal business simply selling products to customers, affiliate marketing has relatively low start-up costs. And there are many different opportunities with low running costs, like using affiliate links on a blog written about a particular niche product category. Alternatively, you can use social media to help you find your audience and connect with them for relatively low costs.

Yet another way to a secure route to finding conversions for your affiliate offers is paid traffic. This method doesn’t require you to be an influencer with a huge social media following, or a prominent website on the first page of the search engine results page. Paid traffic is an option that will connect web traffic with your offer on many different websites, and help you get one step closer to your affiliate commissions.

There are many online resources such as courses, blogs, websites, and community forums that will also help you on your learning journey into the world of affiliate marketing. Many of these are focused around paid traffic campaigns, and how to get the most out of your affiliate offers and traffic sources to make them work for you.

Now is the time to get a work-from-home career, and even if this is just your side hustle for a few hours a day, you can still make real money with it.

Is affiliate marketing the perfect WFH job?

Yes, you can work from home. In fact, you can start your affiliate marketing business from your local coffee shop, or from your favorite beach provided you have a stable internet connection. Another bonus is that you can choose the hours that you work and get compensated for your efforts accordingly. And don’t forget that those campaigns of yours are doing their job while you are away from your desk allowing you to have a passive income. If that’s of any interest to you, then affiliate marketing is probably the right career choice.

Covid-19 has given everyone a perfect opportunity to learn a skill or launch a career. If you are wanting to do both, affiliate marketing is for you. There is so much to learn within affiliate marketing and so many opportunities to make it a successful full-time career. If you want to find out more about how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the affiliate marketing industry you can read our article linked below.

Work-from-home kind of job for covid-19 days?
Affiliate marketing is the answer.

Can you make money with affiliate campaigns while you sleep?

We are sure you have heard the phrase make money while you sleep from countless YouTube videos made by affiliate marketers or seen it on various blogs and community forums, but is it actually true? Can you really make money with affiliate campaigns while you sleep?

Yes, you can.

There is a degree of truth to this, as you do not have to be sitting at your computer watching your advertising campaigns for them to be making you money.

But the opposite is also true. If you are not careful, you will lose money while you sleep, too. This is why it is important to use tools like the Rule-based optimization feature, which has a set of protocols that automatically stop or start your campaigns. So, if your budget starts burning uncontrollably while you are away from your desk, this handy AI feature will pause your campaigns. Which, in turn, will allow you to sip on your well-deserved margaritas, or enjoy time off during holidays and events while also making money.

How do I start a career in affiliate marketing?

Here we will lay out what you need to get started in affiliate marketing.

Many people say all you need to get started with affiliate marketing is a laptop and an internet connection, but the truth is you need a lot more than that. You need a few tools that will help you get started, as well as access to an affiliate network or program and a traffic source. The tools we think every affiliate marketer needs are a traffic source, a landing page builder, an ad tracker, and potentially some web hosting for your landing pages.

Once you’ve got these tools and you have signed up to your preferred affiliate network and traffic source you will be ready to start your affiliate marketing career.

Best Affiliate Marketing Tools and Plugins in 2022

Why is finding your affiliate marketing niche important?

We’ve all heard the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Well, this applies perfectly to the number one tip we give to affiliate marketers which is to find your niche.

No, seriously, find it and stick with it, and you’ll already be on your way to building your career as an affiliate marketer.

A niche is important as it keeps you focused, you know how much to pay for traffic in a particular product category and in a particular GEO, and you can keep refining your affiliate marketing strategy until your campaigns are all in green. That’s when you know your niche is right for you.

That’s why we always recommend new affiliates to start with RON (Run of network aka broad) campaigns and then focus on what worked in that campaign and stick with that. Then you can get more granular into the data in future campaigns when you know what works in your niche and what doesn’t.

It’s also important for you to stay informed about your chosen niche, and look for new high-quality content, news, trends, hypes, and fresh products or services to promote, to keep your affiliate portfolio up to date.

Occasionally, a new sub-niche that is directly related to yours will pop up, and if you react quickly enough, you can jump on this and add extra income to your affiliate business.

We have also found out that beginner affiliate marketers who don’t make a profit often try too many different markets at the same time, which means they break the golden rule —  find your niche, and stick to it!

Want to learn the 7 biggest mistakes you can make when starting affiliate marketing? Click here!

How to become an affiliate marketer?

Some say, all you need in affiliate marketing is to find a niche, sign up for an affiliate program and promote the offers to your target audience but at Zeropark we know there is a better way. A way that doesn’t require you to have your own affiliate website, a blog, or have a huge social media following.

This is the way of paid traffic. In this way, you will still be promoting products and services for other companies, but you will be doing so through targeted advertising via pop ads or domain redirect ads.

What are the steps?

Becoming an affiliate marketer involves the following steps:

1. Find your niche.
2. Join an affiliate network or a direct affiliate program.
3. Choose a traffic source.
4. Set up programmatic ad campaigns to promote your offers.
5. Create engaging content for your offer pages.
6. Track and record your performance.
7. Optimize your campaigns based on collected data for the best performance.

Those are the 7 basic steps to getting started in affiliate marketing with paid traffic, but we’ve got another article on 25 tips for beginners like yourselves who are just getting started.

25 Affiliate Marketing Tips for Beginner Affiliates

Why is networking and joining community forums a good idea?

Just because you are self-employed as an affiliate marketer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to network. In fact, if you engage with other affiliate marketers in the business, you might just learn something. Affiliate forums exist to promote this kind of sharing of ideas, and many opportunities have come out of the connections that have been made on the forums. This is your opportunity to develop your skills to have a successful career in affiliate marketing.

We recommend that you check out each of the forums like affiliatefix, Dijs Forum, i Am Affiliate, affLIFT, or STM and see which is the right fit for the campaigns that you are running.

These forums contain years of online business experience from other affiliates who will share their marketing strategies to help guide you to have a successful affiliate career.

Affiliate marketing forums and communities for beginners and advanced marketers.

What are the benefits?

Which offers convert best for beginner affiliates?

Here at Zeropark, we are always looking to give you a helping hand with your campaigns and this article is no different. We are going to go over the best converting offers for beginners and let you decide which you will run.

• Lead Gen – You will be paid for email marketing sign-ups and other forms of questionnaires that are completed. So, it’s often worth including a bonus to entice your audience to leave their details.
• Gambling is not just a roll of the dice, it’s an opportunity to make some money while you sleep. But be careful as there are a lot of restrictions surrounding this topic particularly age and geo.
• E-commerce is a popular niche for affiliate programs and the opportunity to convert interested searchers into sold products is high.
• Surveys & weeps are great for affiliate marketers whether they are beginners or those who have made money in affiliate marketing for years.
• Downloads can have some of the highest affiliate commission rates on the market, but remember competition is high for this niche.
• Financial offers need a focused offer page so make sure to do your research. These include loans, mortgages, and different types of investments.
• Crypto Offers — Cryptocurrency valuations may fluctuate but crypto advertising stays constant. There are a wide range of cryptocurrency-related products to promote and the demand for this vertical has grown recently.
• Sports Betting —  with many peaks in activity throughout the year, tailoring your offers to your audience is all about timing.
• Dating — Dating is a category that includes dating apps from various app stores. And it is popular in Q4 and around Valentine’s day. So, get your offers ready during these peaks. But ensure you target your GEOs carefully as some countries have different dating apps and restrictions.
• Adult — The vertical covers a wide selection of adult products and services. This is one of the most durable niches the internet has seen and can be incredibly lucrative. Although, you need to be careful to include age restrictions for landing pages.

Bonus tip: When starting with affiliate marketing, try to choose lower payout offers or try targeting Tier 3 GEOs as these often have lower prices and it might be easier to break through the competition, test your offers and make them profitable while still learning the ropes.

If you want some more detail on what the top affiliate offers are in 2022… Check out this article!

Conclusions

If you are looking to get started in a lucrative job that allows you to work where and when you want, a career in affiliate marketing may be for you. Hopefully, after reading this article you will know what you need to enjoy a full-time affiliate marketing career.

Now it’s time to get started with your business and start running your campaigns!

Ready to start your affiliate marketing career?

Run your campaigns with Zeropark now!