5 Powerful Tips That Make Affiliate Marketing Worth It In 2023

Figuring out if affiliate marketing is worth it can be tough.

On one hand, there are influencers out there making a killing out of it, and the projected growth of the industry is set to reach new heights in 2023.

And on the other hand, people have tried and failed miserably, which you don’t really hear about.

I failed three times before I managed to make it into a successful business venture.

The truth is that in 2023 we are bombarded with content and information non-stop, and all you hear is conflicting information.

I’m here to help clear things up and make it as simple as possible for you to decide if affiliate marketing is worth it for you.

I’ve also got some tips and golden nuggets to get you started on your journey as easily as possible, so let’s dive right in!

Give It To Me Straight: Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?

The short answer is yes- if done correctly, affiliate marketing can be extremely profitable.

Despite being a multi-billion dollar industry (with a B), what’s mind-blowing is how up to 81% of brands around the world now have affiliate programs.

From shoe stores and tech gadgets to SaaS businesses and investment banks, you have it all.

The key is finding the right products to promote and then driving targeted traffic to your affiliate links.

The only tricky thing is getting that targeted traffic from an engaged audience.

Is Affiliate Marketing Legit and Does It Really Work?

Affiliate marketing is a massive industry that is only growing as Amazon and other e-commerce companies expand their online presence.

There are a lot of people, myself included, who have found success with affiliate marketing. I was able to quit my 9-5 job in 2021 and make a full-time income from affiliate marketing.

But I’m going to be honest with you: It’s not an easy get-rich-quick kind of deal.

It’s simple to understand but not easy to do consistently. It takes legit time, effort, and a lot of hard work to make it work.

What you’re essentially doing is becoming a content creator and building audiences in a certain niche of interest.

If you’re willing to put in the work, it can be an incredibly rewarding experience that can lead to a full-time income relatively quickly (I’m talking about months here).

What Is Affiliate Marketing and How Does It Work?

Affiliate marketing is a commission-based partnership with a brand. As an affiliate, you are responsible for bringing customers to a specific brand. If a customer buys a product, you get a small piece of the sale amount as a reward, in other words, a commission.

In simple terms that even a 5-year-old can understand:

• Imagine that I run a candy shop.
• Other people (affiliates) run around the town and get customers interested in candy.
• Customers arrive at my candy shop and since they like candy, they’ll probably buy some.
• I reward those people that ran around town with a small share of my sales (and maybe some candy as a bonus).

So as an affiliate, you’re essentially just the middleman between a business and the customer.

There are an infinite number of businesses and customers in the world, and you’re matching them up like Tinder.

This makes affiliate marketing a lucrative industry as you don’t need to create the product, you market other people’s products.

Hold On a Minute, Isn’t Affiliate Marketing Saturated?

There is a saying that I don’t recall where I heard it, but is still true:

“If something is competitive, then there is money to be made.”

Let me put it this way, would you rather start a restaurant in an area where no one wants to eat food? Or would you try to get a spot at the busiest street corner?

Everything in this world that is worth going after is competitive, and there are an unlimited number of customers and products to work with. 

Affiliate marketing cannot truly be saturated.

How Do I Get Started With Affiliate Marketing?

Now that you know a little bit more about affiliate marketing, it’s time to take a look at how to do it effectively.

Just like everything else in life, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about things.

And the wrong way would be to just start promoting any random product that you come across, insert a link in your social media bio, and hope for the best.

This is guaranteed to yield little to no results and a lot of wasted time, so instead consider this beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing below.?

1. Choose your vehicle

The first step to affiliate marketing success is choosing the right vehicle or platform to promote your affiliate links on.

There are many different options available, but there are three MAIN vehicles that work in 2023:

• Slow but stable: Blogging (my preferred method)
• Explosive and volatile: Social Media Accounts
• On-demand and expensive: Paid advertising

And while you can certainly combine all of these vehicles, you’re better off starting in one area and working on it until it’s successful.

For example, if you want to promote a trendy physical product that is in for the season, then paid advertising might be the best complementary option for you.

It enables you to laser target people who are already interested in what you’re promoting during critical time periods such as Black Friday or Christmas.

On the other hand, if you’re promoting an online course or even software, then inbound organic traffic would probably be a better fit for people who have already shown an interest in it.

And although you can quickly grow social media accounts and monetize an audience of raving fans, you also run the risk of having your account shut down.

This can happen for a variety of reasons (even by mistake), which means that you’d have to start all over again from scratch.

2. Build authority and credibility

The next step is to start creating content that builds authority and credibility around the niche or area of expertise in which you want to be an affiliate.

This could be in the form of blog articles, social media posts, YouTube videos, etc.

The key here is not to directly promote anything yet, but rather to focus on building up your brand. Aim to build a brand that people trust and that always gives away free, valuable content that they love to consume.

This is true both for blogging and social media, with the difference that you’re building trust and credibility for Google vs. an audience of people.

This might sound like a lot of work at first, but keep in mind that you’re building an asset that can make you a healthy income for months and even years to come.

Once you have a system in place, it’s actually not that hard or time-consuming to maintain or even scale it through tools, planning, and outsourcing work.

3. Monetize your audience in bursts

Once you’ve built up a little bit of authority and have a consistent flow of traffic, it’s time to start promoting affiliate products.

The best way to do this is by finding products that are complementary to the content you’ve already created.

If you do this the smart way, then you already know what products you want to promote before you even start building an audience.

For example, if you have a blog about personal finance, you can start looking into affiliate programs for things like credit cards, investment accounts, and so on before you go all in on growth for that niche.

The key here is not to go overboard and start shoving affiliate links in people’s faces all the time. Instead, make sure that they’re relevant to your audience and that they’re exactly what they need.

4. Use incentives to skyrocket sales

There are a few different strategies that an affiliate marketer can use to spur on sales and help people make a purchase. 

And one of them is by adding bonuses to whatever you are promoting!

PayKickstart’s powerful affiliate platforms let you easily add a custom bonus to virtually any product offer that you may have.

Simply create a bonus offer that you’d like a customer to receive once they buy through your link. This offer might be something like:

• An Ebook
• Checklist
• PDF guide
• Access to a course

In your PayKickstart dashboard, simply add your bonus URL, and once a customer buys a product, they will be emailed the bonus automatically. 

Below is an example of what your customers will receive:

This is a super easy way to skyrocket sales and get those affiliate commissions coming in.

5. Aim for periods of growth

Here is the thing that people don’t understand about marketing in general: you can’t monetize an audience 24/7; it won’t work for very long, especially on social media.

As you build up your credibility over time by delivering consistent value, once you monetize that audience, you’ll “burn” or consume a bit of that credibility with them.

It’s a balancing act, and honestly, not everyone likes to get pitched or sold to 24/7, it just looks weird.

That’s why you need to focus on longer periods of growth and monetize in short bursts before going back to “growth mode” again.

Once you’ve had a successful burst of campaigns, go back to growing the brand again with free value to build up that credibility once more.

Rinse and repeat forever and across different niches.

Wrap Up

Affiliate marketing can be an incredibly lucrative business model, but only if you do it right.

By using the tips and strategies in this post, you can avoid some of the most common mistakes people make when getting started with affiliate marketing.

? Just remember to focus on building a strong personal brand, creating quality content, and finding complementary products to promote.

Do those things consistently, and you’ll be well on your way to making money as an affiliate marketer!

Chris Starkhagen

Chris is a synthesizer and an engineer who combines content marketing with tech expertise. He writes carefully and curates the best tools and assets for new technical trends, content creation, and ai marketing.

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