In this blog post, we’ll look at three types of affiliate marketing:
- Affiliate marketing with no strings attached
- Related affiliate marketing
- Affiliate marketing was involved.
Are you ready to jump right in? Let’s get started.
Table of contents
Instead of simply explaining where it all came from—how much this and how much that. I decided to make this piece a little more useful by doing more than just telling you how much I earned. Again, I’m not here to show you how much money I make online, but rather how I earn money online and what I’ve learned along the way.
When considering affiliate income notably, I concluded that I could separate how people earn money as affiliates into three basic categories: unattached, related, and involved. These terms describe how we are related to the product or products for which we may be an affiliate.
Affiliate Marketing with No Strings Attached
These are standard pay-per-click affiliate marketing campaigns in which you have no presence or authority in the niche of the product you’re promoting.
This sort of affiliate marketing is appealing to many because no physical presence or authority is required! Building a reputation and trust with particular groups of people online takes time, and many people are either too afraid to commit to working on a blog or website or just do not have the time. This is the only choice for many people.
Personally, I dislike this business strategy because it is not a business model, in my opinion. Yes, it’s an income-generating approach, but is it a business model in which I can establish relationships with the end-user? No. You become a behind-the-scenes middleman with PPC affiliate marketing.
With this strategy, there is a high income to focus on potential earnings rather than the customers you serve. That is the negative aspect of affiliate marketing.
That is not for me. In fact, I attempted something similar in early 2009. I joined an affiliate network and discovered thousands of prospective products to promote. I chose one and spent roughly $250 on Adwords, hoping that someone would click on the link and pay me.
I commend you and wish you were continuing success if you dabble in PPC affiliate marketing and it’s working for you in such a way that you’re instilling trust in your audience. It’s a lot tougher than it sounds, so kudos to those of you who are succeeding.
Affiliate Marketing Related
Another type of affiliate marketing that I like to refer to is Related Affiliate Marketing. This is where you have some form of online presence—whether it’s through a blog, a podcast, videos, or social media—and you have affiliate links to products related to your industry, but they’re for products you don’t actually use.
Back when text link ads were popular, I remember seeing a 125 by 125-pixel advertisement for Text Link Ads, which was an earlier advertising format in which advertisers could pay to have specified terms on your website become connections to their products. This was popular in the blogosphere when I first started out. The majority of these sites did not employ the text link ad service on their own sites.
I doubt that everyone who posts one of those links on their blog uses all of those products and services. And that’s fine. Placing affiliate links relating to your niche on your website is an excellent way to earn extra income. People will believe you and your decision to position the ad on your site, whether it’s in the sidebar as a banner or as a text link at the footer of your blog post because you have a website and authority.
Nowadays, though, I don’t want to promote something that I haven’t personally tried and enjoyed. How can I say I honestly support a product if I don’t know everything there is to know about it?
You risk losing the trust you’ve created with your audience if you don’t promote the correct products, even if you know the owner or think it’s a good fit. It takes time and development to create authority and trust, and one terrible affiliate offer can quickly derail that, so make sure you trust the product you’re recommending and the team behind it to look after your people.
As a result, all of my affiliate marketing currently comes from the last sort of affiliate marketing I’d like to discuss:
Affiliate Marketing Involved
Involved affiliate marketing is when you’ve used a product or service, actually believe in it, and personally suggest it to your audience. Not in a banner ad or anywhere that says “suggested resources,” but as part of your life and strategy for what it is you’re talking about. Because it is part of the process, the product virtually becomes something people “have to have.”
This is the polar opposite of PPC, in which the consumer does not even see you in order for the transaction to occur. Instead, this is you speaking directly to folks who may require a product that you’re giving and who are paying attention to you. This is not the same as spending your money to make money, as with PPC. It is the use of your reputation, trust, and authority to persuade people to adopt your recommendation, use it, and pay you a commission in exchange.
Trust and authenticity are the foundations of these forms of affiliate relationships. The same is valid for how we should cultivate relationships with our audiences.
To summarize, you may choose which type of affiliate marketing works best, but in my experience, using your authority and online presence in a niche to advocate products that you’ve tried and that have benefitted you in some way is the best way to proceed.
Last Updated on June 21, 2020
