Making Money In Your Sleep with Affiliate Marketing

Imagine all you needed to make money online was a website, a blog, or heck even a YouTube page. You don’t even have to create your own products or offer a service. Sounds good? I bet it does!

Welcome to affiliate marketing.

With affiliate marketing, a company pays people like you and I (for example bloggers, small business owners, social media influencers) to advertise their products and services to generate sales.

With Affiliate marketing, you have 3 major players:

First, you have the seller... the company that makes or provides the product. That could be a nationwide franchise to a small independent shop. Next, you have the affiliate, known as the publisher, which is you, who promotes the seller's products on their platform, such as a personal blog, website and or social media page. Last but not least, you have what I consider the most important player in this game... the consumer - the buyer of the product. When they make a purchase, when clicking on the affiliate link, the affiliate (remember that's you) earns a commission on the sale.

So I know y'all are like, that's cool and all, but what about my coins! GIRL.... HOW DO I GET PAID?!?

The most common way to get paid is pay per sale. The consumer must buy the product after clicking the affiliate link, and then the affiliate will receive a percentage of the sale, which can vary by the seller. Another way which is less common is pay per lead. The seller will pay the affiliate to generate leads, rather than make sales. Basically, you must persuade the consumer to complete actions, such as filling out a contact form or signing up for a free trial. Now think of all the free trials you have signed up for from a blog or YouTube page! Hmmm-mmm.... Them folks got paid from that. Now the least preferred way to get paid is with pay per click. It's unusual, but it has been done. The affiliate earns money when the consumers click on the affiliate link. Whether the affiliate converts it to a lead or the consumer makes a purchase, the affiliate is paid just off the click. You will have quite a few affiliate programs not compensate you this way, because it can be manipulated if you will.

Listen... if you're interested in monetizing your virtual platforms and want to learn more about affiliate marketing, schedule a consultation on the website at www.thevirutalsocialite.com.

In the meantime... check out this post from HubSpot, "49 of the Best Affiliate Programs That Pay the Highest Commission", to view some of the best affiliate programs out there.