Marketing is to business as wings are to a butterfly. When adequate marketing tactics are used for a certain business, it allows the company to soar and reach a broader audience that might be interested in its products and services.
When wanting to market what you’re trying to sell, you get three main options. The first is hiring people looking for entry-level marketing jobs, the second is doing it yourself, and the third is using affiliate marketing companies to do it for you, something that is especially popular nowadays.
Let’s discuss why marketing is important, what affiliate marketing is and how it works, as well as the best programs to use.
Why is marketing so important?
There is more depth to marketing than just showing advertisements since it also helps potential customers engage with your company. The way this happens is that your customers perceive information that is relevant to them and your company, whilst also giving something new to them.
With engagement comes a relationship between the business and its customers. The way marketing works is by targeting certain demographics, locations, habits, and psychographics, meaning it is meant to connect the right people to your products and services at the right time.
As with any company, reputation is important when faced with customers, investors, and employees. The way a reputation is built and maintained is by meeting the expectations of customers, meaning you are increasing brand equity with customer loyalty and proud association with your brand.
The communicative aspect of marketing is about convincing customers and representing your brand. Thanks to the competition in the market, it is important to maintain that stream of information constantly to not fall behind.
If you weren’t able to market your refreshed image, you wouldn’t be able to let go of the older customers who would simply be dissatisfied.
Lastly, the feedback you receive from marketing proves useful in those said changes since marketing is what determines your company’s survival overall.
On the more personal side of things, marketing things you are trying to sell as an individual unit can prove difficult without any affiliations, which is what we’re here to discuss.
Affiliate Marketing
One popular model used for marketing is named affiliate marketing. The way this works is that influencers and certain brands get connected with companies that are willing to commission them into this online paying job based on commission from sales they make.
An example of an affiliate network that most people on the globe have heard of is Amazon, where influencers promote products and earn commissions on the purchases their followers make from Amazon. This can be done through ads and marketing alike.
The way affiliate marketing works is to choose the products they wish to promote and get custom codes and links through which their followers can buy the products to finally get paid a commission of usually 5% on each sale.
Every year around 81% of brands uses affiliate marketing to earn revenue, a number that will only keep growing as time passes.
In every affiliate marketing dynamic there is a seller who provides a product or service without necessarily being involved in the marketing, an affiliate person or company with a large following to persuade them to become customers, and lastly, the consumer, who buys what these two sell.
Sometimes affiliates are open to their audience about receiving a commission, which doesn’t usually thwart buyers since followers tend to want to support their favorite creator.
A modern example of this is PewDiePie and G-Fuel, an energy drink company that creates special flavors and packaging using his brand and gives him a commission on the products he sells.
One fear from the consumer side is that they will be overpaying for a product or service thanks to the affiliation, but that is seldom the case since their commission is already included within the retail price.
Top Affiliate Marketing Platforms
Let’s look at the companies that are or have affiliate programs, and why they’re some of the best as of this year, 2022.
Awin
Awin was previously known as simply “Affiliate Window” but has been rebranded. This network carries over 13,000 merchants for affiliates to choose from, making a great connecting platform for both parties.
A little-known fact about the upcoming platform is that it is owned by Awin, it just runs separately with different merchants.
Awin has larger names such as Etsy, AliExpress, Gymshark, and Under Armour to choose from, amongst many others. It even houses niche products and brands suitable to everyone’s needs.
The minimum payout is 20$ and the commission depends on the merchants, for a signup fee of 5$, Awin even gives you a WordPress plugin for product importing. If you don’t get approved, you lose that 5$ fee though.
Amazon Associates
Amazon has been all over the news for the past decade, and its popularity hasn’t ceased. This giant lets you earn a commission on any product (all of them physical) found on their website.
The biggest catch this network offers its affiliates is that even if it isn’t on a linked product, you still get a commission on a sale from someone that purchased something else thanks to you. This can only be achieved if the consumer is within the cookie duration of 24 hours naturally.
Amazon has a flat commission rate now, which ranges from 0% to 10% depending on the product category, and you can even earn that on products that are from third-party vendors just on Amazon’s website.
Its downside is the low payout, which is 10$.
Rakuten Marketing
You might recognize this company from its previous name, which was Linkshare. This company has some more affordable and giant companies as merchants, including Walmart, Macy’s, and Best Buy. This means they have a multitude of product types to choose from, even with 1000 merchants.
The minimum payout to this company is 50$ and proves to be a trustworthy company to affiliates. They also offer easy ad rotation as a nice feature. The downside is that the software feels a bit outdated, but that’s all.
eBay Partner Network
Instead of producing products, in this program, you promote listings on their website. The biggest drawback to their program is the fact there’s an auction method, meaning many products are impermanent.
As for commissions, you will earn 50% to 70% of eBay’s commission on the product, meaning you don’t earn from the product price directly, but more the percentage of a percentage.
The payout is 10$ and sadly their cookie policy also only lasts 24 hours.
Peerfly
Peerfly is a newer runner in this affiliate game, but their platform has proven user-friendly and well organized. They offer products from merchants such as Target, CBS, and Fiverr.
Their minimum payout is 50$ and your commission will vary by merchant.
No matter which company you choose, they all have their perks and a niche they are more efficient in, so assess your audience and choose wisely.
Final Thoughts
In this article, we discussed the 5 best affiliate marketing platforms where you can earn a decent amount of money with minimal effort.
I hope this article proved to be useful for you. If you have any suggestions or questions, feel free to let us know in the comments section.
