Running ad space isn’t the moneymaker it used to be. That’s not to say that it was ever a solid source of income, but it’s harder to make a living off of regular ads thanks to ad-blocking programs and internet users who have trained themselves to ignore ads.
A lot of sites have responded to these changes by enabling more and more aggressive ads. They’ll run video ads that start playing and using up bandwidth immediately, ads that call attention to themselves by starting out unmuted. One common tactic is a popup ad that gets around popup blockers by only appearing once you click anywhere on the page. But while these ads are often more effective than the ones you can ignore, they’re also far more annoying, and they drive away viewers.
The Affiliate Marketing Format
Fortunately, there is a better way to get money through advertising and marketing, a way that pays substantially better because it only pays for concrete results, not a per-click basis. On top of that, this method can often get around ad block software by incorporating the advertisement into the rest of the page.
The way affiliate marketing programs work is by offering commissions for products sold through an affiliate’s recommendation. The commissions are small, but not nearly as small as per-click ad payments, and they can really start to add up if the affiliate can build up a good, strong reputation that attracts plenty of viewers who are interested in the spotlighted products.
“Make Money Doing What You Love!”
One of the other big attractions for affiliate marketing programs is the fact that the list of products and services you can choose to represent is effectively limitless. A lot of major online sellers take part in affiliate programs, and you can select any part of their catalog. This means you can create unique affiliate marketing programs which are tailored specifically to your favorite hobby or pastime.
However, there are a few major caveats to this rosy assessment. Being a marketing affiliate isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme, it’s a job, and it’s a self-employment job at that. That translates to spending lots of odd hours on work, having to start from almost nothing, and having no guarantee that you’ll make any money at all.
When that phrase says affiliate marketing programs can let you make money doing what you love, it’s not just saying that the program lets you discuss almost anything and make a profit. It’s also saying that you’ll have to love what you’re doing if you don’t want to be sick of it by the time you’re making a real income. However, if you do love it, and if you have some talent at promoting yourself and your affiliated companies, affiliate marketing programs may be a very good way for you to make a living.
How To Make It Work
Affiliate marketing programs aren’t too picky about how you promote your affiliated products. Some of the usual methods include email lists and social media posts, but one important method that most marketers use to one degree or another is the website.
An active personal website allows a marketer to discuss whatever he or she wants, creating blog posts and articles that are sometimes about the products being marketed but are other times about related topics which you, personally, want to write about. It also gives marketers a platform from which they can make honest reviews about the products they are nominally trying to sell. Because while shamelessly promoting a product can get you more money in the short term, in the long run any commissions you sacrifice to improve your readers’ trust will be well spent.
Fortunately, if you have any questions on how this works, how to promote yourself and your website online, or any of the other aspects of affiliate marketing programs, you’ve come to the right place. At Affiliate Marketer Training, you can read articles written by currently successful marketers on how they managed to get where they are and how you can use SEO, blogging, social media, and more to raise your visibility and build the trust it takes to maintain an audience. Our website can’t guarantee your success, but we can help you reach that point faster than you could have on your own.