Best Resources for Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is promoting someone else’s business for a commission. Over the years, affiliate marketing has taken a popular stand with a lot of online freelancers. This is because of the profitability that is associated with affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Success Stories
There are many websites out there who claim to show you how to get rich quickly through affiliate marketing. Don't get me wrong, some have great information and you can learn a ton, but you can also get scammed big time. The thing is, you can make good money from affiliate marketing to the extent that you can quit your day job. I have compiled real affiliate marketing stories here where you can learn how people like you started and the achievements they have made so far.
Google's Adsense check worth $132.994.97 made Jeremy “ShoeMoney” Shoemaker famous. He went ahead to become an influential internet marketer ever since.
Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net shows you how you can succeed in the Amazon Affiliate Program. He actually made $600,000 from the Amazon Associate Program in 13 years!
Stuart Walker from NicheHacks shares with you how ThisIsWhyIAmBroke.com is making $20,000+ per month in sales on unusual products from Amazon.com.
Chris Guthrie from UpFuel shows you how he made over $90,000 with the Amazon Associate Program. He calls it the "20 Tips I Used To Make $90,336.65 With Amazon."
John Chow shows you how he took his blog from making zero to over $40,000 per month in just two years. He did this working only 2 hours a day which ultimately made him one of the biggest blogs on the internet.
John Crestani shows us how he made it after getting fired and building $500k a month business while travelling.
Rosalind Gardner, best known for her book The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online, will teach you the basics of affiliate marketing.
Authority Hacker is the last resource but not least on our list. It is a bit different from the previous resources though. It has in depth information on landing pages that has been analyzed from 5 different, highly successful websites.
Affiliate Marketing: The Basics
Affiliate marketing is among the best options to make money online but still many people do not know what it entails. Affiliate marketing in a nutshell is a method of promoting products and services of other people or companies on the internet for a commission. Every successful sale of a product or service that you promote earns you a certain percentage of the total sale cost.
Affilorama outlines the 6 reasons to become an affiliate, how much you stand to make, and how affiliate marketing really works. It is a good read with great insights.
Rae Hoffman tells it as it is in affiliate marketing through a step-by-step visual explanation. She explains the process starting from signing up with affiliate sites to the paycheck delivery. Understanding Affiliate Marketing Lingo (Glossary of Terms)
A great resource for people who want to do affiliate marketing and for bloggers, It is loaded with glossary of affiliate marketing terms and terminologies used in the industry.
Like in any other industry, affiliate marketing has its own lingo. This page has the most common used terms and their meanings in affiliate marketing.
Skip McGrath gives you handy tips on how to succeed in affiliate marketing.
How I Build, Scale & Flip Amazon Affiliate Niche Sites and Earn 5 Figures Monthly Rohit Palit gives a detailed account on how he builds, scales and flips Amazon niche sites and earn 5 figures per month.
Steve Iser and John Hostler's video explains how you can create multiple 6 figure income streams with CPA.
Niche Research for Affiliate Marketing
In order to create a long term strategy for your affiliate marketing campaigns, it's important to know who or what your target will be. Finding your niche or the market in which specific products can be promoted can greatly focus your efforts. Do not try to promote 100 products from 20 different niches all at once. Instead, do enough research on each one to guide you and to find ones that are competitive and have a high demand. Once you conquer one niche, you can then move on to your 2nd niche, and so on. Below you can find helpful information and guides to help you start looking for your niche.
In this video, niche expert Matt Carter presented methods and examples to find the best niches for affiliate marketing. He also took the time to answer questions from the webinar audience to provide more information.
If you think that you can no longer find a profitable niche due to saturated markets or used up ideas, Pat Flynn provides great advice on how to get past that by changing your mindset and strategy.
As the affiliate marketing game evolves, it's important to think long term and finding your niche will greatly help with that. Rae Hoffman opens up a lot of questions and provides actionable steps for you to find the niche that works for you.
If you have no idea on where to start, AffiliMarketer shares this huge list of possible niches and sub niches that have been profitable for many websites and blogs.
You can't find the best keywords to use on your affiliate marketing campaigns without knowing your niche, and this guide tells you why. It explains how you can find more effective keywords through understanding your niche.
Stuart Walker has created a 9-chapter comprehensive guide to help you understand niche markets and how to find the competitive and profitable ones for you.
Choosing Affiliate Networks and Affiliate Offers
The affiliate networks you work with and the products you promote can make or break your affiliate marketing business. Learn the best resources on how to select the right affiliate networks and offers.
How to Choose the Right Affiliate Networks
You want to work with reputable affiliate networks that have been in the market for a long time (at least 2 years), have a large selection of quality products, and always pay affiliates on time, Here are some articles on how to choose affiliate networks.
This guide is specifically engineered to help you identify what you need in an affiliate network, and how to pick a network that suits those needs. Warning: it’s a little dry.
A similar post to the above, but more geared towards looking at the benefits and supplemental assistance a network provides.
Top Affiliate Networks and Affiliate Programs
This is the list of top affiliate networks I recommended in my Easy TV Money 2.0 course.
Honorable Mentions
Traffic
Once you have figured out your niche and chosen which affiliate networks and programs to work with, you must then be able to drive traffic to your affiliate campaigns. Luckily, I have already created complete lists of resources for the different ways to get people to your site or ads to aid you in this stage of the process.
Organic Search/SEO
The game of SEO changes every few months, and Google, the King of all search engines, updates their algorithms so frequently that it's challenging for marketers to keep up. These resources on SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, can help you understand the basics of SEO that remain the same while keeping up with the seemingly never-ending Google updates.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) - Search and Social Media
Pay-Per-Click Advertising, or PPC, is one of the most effective traffic generation techniques. Advertisers target keywords or demographics in their ads to drive traffic to their websites or apps, and they pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. The resources in the article can help you overcome the steep learning curve associated with PPC and give you a head start for your next PPC campaign.
Social Media
Almost everyone is on social media, and gaining a following from it can surely profit your business. Learn essential strategies you can use to build a fan base, and ultimately, drive traffic and generate income for your business.
Email Marketing
Read about the importance of email marketing to your business, and how it can increase your earnings. Email marketing has been proven to be the most effective marketing method time and time again. So if you are not building an email list, you are leaving A LOT OF money on the table
Blogging
Find the best resources to build a successful blog that attracts a large audience, pays your bills, and fulfill your dream as a full-time blogger. This includes a list of tools and guides to help you make the most of your blog.
Conversion Rate Optimization
This article is your one-stop destination for everything about CRO. Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO, is the process of using data and user feedback to increase the percentage of visitors to a website that take any desired action. It is a scientific approach to optimizing websites and sale processes, and enables companies to convert more website visitors to customers.
Paid Affiliate Marketing Training
If you're really set on sustaining your affiliate market business, consider investing in educating yourself with the help from the experts. Below are some of the best paid courses available for beginners and even those who have had some experience with the industry.
Comprehensive Training
These sites give access to a huge collection of information and courses that are specific to succeeding in affiliate marketing.
Achieve success in your affiliate marketing business with the step-by-step guides and full range of resources from Wealthy Affiliate, where you will be taken through practical applications of the lessons. For $47 per month, you can get full access to the site content, which includes training courses, videos, live classes, site tools, coaching sessions, responsive chat support, Wealthy Affiliate community, and more. You can also try their services for free with a starter account, though the features are much more limited.
You can join Affilorama for free and you can gain access to the lessons, videos, forums, affiliate tools, expert interviews and more on the site. Also, you can purchase the AffiloBlueprint for $197 to get the complete system developed by Mark Ling that turned his affiliate marketing business really profitable. Affilorama also offers other products to aid you in your affiliate marketing business.
Video Courses
Unlike the comprehensive training courses, the following will only take a few hours of your time and will provide information on the different ways to make money with affiliate marketing.
Cost: $29.99. Duration: 2.5 hours
Learn the basics of affiliate marketing with affiliate expert Evgenii "Geno" Prussakov who will discuss concepts and strategies for starting your own affiliate business and sustaining it. The course is divided into 27 short videos to present the different topics. This video is available through the $29.99 monthly subscription to Lynda.com where you will gain access to thousands more videos on different topics.
Cost: $25. Duration: 7 hours
Andrew Williams will teach you how to build an effective affiliate website by showing you each of the steps through a live demo. The course is divided into 56 lectures with short videos and articles to show the whole process from start to finish.
Cost: $20. Duration: 3.5 hours
Entrepreneur Alex Genadinik will teach you how you can earn passive income through affiliate marketing. The course includes information on how to choose products and how promoting them can be highly profitable. He has also included information on some affiliate networks, forums, plugins and more. The course is done through 43 lectures.
Cost: $40. Duration: 4 hours
Lisa Irby will guide you through building an authority website to share your affiliate products for your niche. Though the course is short, the application will take a notable period of time to achieve the best results. This is all about building the foundation for a website that you can use to earn money with for years to come, so that you can continuously make passive income.
Cost: $20. Duration: 1.5 hours
Internet Marketer Adam Bosch can teach you how to earn through affiliate marketing without a website. This process will only take you about 2 hours a day to earn $50. He also included how these earnings can double if you already have a website. The course includes more guides and lists for the different aspects of affiliate marketing. The course is done through 28 lectures with short videos and written articles.
Cost $20. Duration: 1.5. hours
This course is a guide for beginners to get into CPA marketing and earn through passive income. You can learn about how to get into some of the biggest networks and profitable offers. This course is done through 21 lectures with some short videos and a couple of articles.
Cost: $25. Duration: 2 hours
Internet marketer Kudus Adu can teach you how to make money pages with high conversion rates and how to do your market research. The lessons in this course will require you to work hard and make a small monetary investment to realize your efforts. Additionally, it includes a live case study to show how the methods work. This course is delivered through 19 short video lectures.
Cost: $50. Duration: 5 hours
Top-rated instructor and CEO Jake Statler will show you all the steps to successfully driving traffic to your affiliate links without your own website. He will also teach you how you can speed up the process. This even includes real case studies from students who have taken the course and succeeded.
Cost: $50. Duration: 2.5 hours
Internet Marketing Strategist John Piteo can teach you how to make hundreds to thousands of dollars each week by selling t-shirts through Teespring and Facebook. He will teach you how to target your audience and drive traffic to your campaigns. You might need to take his beginner course Affiliate Marketing Beginner: Sell T-Shirts with Teespring if you aren't familiar with t-shirt campaigns.
Cost: $20. Duration: 1 hour
Learn how to earn well through the Amazon Affiliate Program with internet marketer Hema Chandiran. He will take you through the steps to find the best products and to build your site. The course includes useful software that would normally cost $114, and will include details on how to use them.
Cost: $30. Duration: 3 hours
Entrepreneur and coach KC Tan will teach you how to be a successful affiliate marketer with the ClickBank network. He'll show you all the systems and techniques that have proven to be effective to make you money. This course works for beginners and professionals alike, and it comes with free course updates for life so you can continue learning.
Cost: $25. Duration: 3.5 hours
Expert Hans Peter Jeschke shares the simple Lazy Money System and how you can easily make money with no website or software needed. This beginner course requires the use of the Bing/Yahoo affiliate program and the ClickBank network.
Affiliate Marketers To Follow
Following these successful affiliate marketers can greatly benefit you as they share effective tips and tricks to succeed in the industry. You can also hear about a lot of useful tools, programs, offers, and so much more.
In 2003, Jeremy started ShoeMoney.com to blog about his online marketing career. He started out with a $50,000 dollar debt but gained financial freedom through his ventures, where he has made millions. He is a marketer, entrepreneur, blogger, best selling author, and a family man.
"The Original Dot Com Mogul," John Chow launched a successful blogging career and proved that you can earn thousands with your own blog. In 2012, he was named as the Best Marketing Affiliate Blog at the 2012 Affiliate Marketing Awards. He wrote Blogging Secrets and Amazon best seller Make Money Online: Roadmap of a Dot Com Mogul.
One of the industry leaders, Charles Ngo started as an affiliate marketer in 2008 and made a million with it in one year. Through his blog, he generously shares information on how you can be successful while working less. He also talks about his other interests such as fitness, personal finance, productivity and more.
PeerFly's Director of Marketing, Luke Kling of LukePeerFly.com earns money through affiliate marketing and website development. He blogs to help affiliate marketers and entrepreneurs earn more money online through the guides and tools that he creates. He has built hundreds of websites that regularly receive high traffic.
Geno Prussakov is an affiliate marketing manager and online marketing consultant. He blogs on amnavigator.com where he talks about affiliate marketing, leadership, and more. He has also created courses and books to share more about his affiliate marketing expertise, and he is also regularly invited to be a speaker or interviewee for major events and publications.
SEO and affiliate marketing expert Matthew Woodward shares about his own knowledge and experience in the industry through lessons, tutorials, and more. He specializes in SEO and enjoys the ever-changing Google algorithms. His blog has won many awards and has been in many media features.
Also known as Sugarrae, Rae Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur and online marketer. With years of experience, she is able to share valuable information on building passive income through affiliate marketing, She blogs to aid people in developing their own careers in online marketing.
Internet marketer Bill Burniece regularly shares the best affiliate programs out there through his High Paying Affiliate Programs blog. His goal was to fill the gap left by affiliate program sites that were outdated or incomplete. He also provides guides and advice for becoming and affiliate marketer and for building your own website.
Adam Riemer has worked as an online marketer for over a decade and has been featured in numerous events and publications. He started writing his blog to share about his projects, as well as to answer questions from other people. He also has an eBook called How to Make Money Blogging.
Of course you have to follow me :) I went from $21,000 in debt with broken English to building 2 multimillion-dollar companies in 23 countries. I turned my life around in 6 months through Pay Per Click Advertising and Affiliate Marketing, which is the system I teach in my online course Easy TV Money.
More Affiliate Marketing Resources
Here are more resources that don't really fit well into the above categories. I have personally read each one of them to make sure they are going to be worth your time.
They are: choose relevant affiliate programs, consider an affiliate aggregator service, create content that sells, and integrate affiliate links appropriately.
Carrie Dils discusses how to select affiliate programs, properly disclose affiliate links, and split-test affiliate ads.
Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income shares his 8 principles for making money with affiliate marketing on your blog.
Find a lot of smart and tested ways to begin adding affiliate links into your site after reading Pat’s post.
Learn from Charles Ngo how to build a landing page through coding, and using WYSIWYG editors and landing page generators.
7 top landing page builders are reviewed by Zac Johnson.
Michael Johnston shares 5 proven monetization strategies to boost your profits.
Neil Patel discusses the definition of A/B testing, test ideas, and A/B testing for mobile, E-Commerce, SaaS, email marketing, and lead generation.
A free quarterly magazine featuring articles from affiliate marketers and digital marketing experts.
It offers videos from the sessions at previous Affiliate Summit conferences.
Tom Ewer from ElegantThemes reveal the best tools for link cloaking, product customization, affiliate program management, and link shortening.
Forward-thinking advice on how to achieve success in the ever-changing affiliate marketing industry.
An Austin, Texas agency that helps you plan and manages your affiliate program.
An online community for affiliates. Famous for its detailed guides and case studies. Cost: $99/month.
An affiliate marketing forum founded by David Ford featuring case studies, lessons, and tools. Cost: $63/month.