Why Start An Affiliate Marketing Business? 25 Best Programs

Over the last few years, I’ve gotten involved in various online businesses but I’ve come to the conclusion that the best online business to start whether you’re new or you’re already in the digital space is affiliate marketing.

So Why Start An Affiliate Marketing Business?

To help you understand, why in my opinion affiliate marketing is the best online business model let me highlight some of the pitfalls within the most common online businesses that are trending in the digital space as I’m writing this blog post and explain some of the things that the “gurus” won’t tell you before purchasing their $997 course.

Amazon FBA (Selling Products On Amazon):

Now I know you’ve heard of Amazon but what some people don’t know is that 70% of products sold on their platform are actually from everyday people.

I know partnering with one of the most successful businesses at this time can seem very appealing but the reality of selling products on amazon requires A big upfront investment of around $10,000 USD. You’ll need to find A product that will “hopefully” sell, Private label it / Create your own brand, Order units, and have them shipped to an Amazon warehouse where they will fulfill all of your orders for A percentage of the profit (Around 15%)

But there is no guarantee that your product will sell and if it doesn’t amazon will start to charge you for every day that your product is at their warehouse and you aren’t selling units. The amount you are charged is based on the size/volume of your product.

The other side of the spectrum is that you find and have A product that sells a lot of units and your monthly revenue is doing great. Amazon has been known to push products that perform too well off of the front page and release their own version of that same product (Amazon Basic).

As A consumer and someone who is shopping on Amazon is going to be more inclined to purchase something with Amazon’s name on it and they also have the resources to more likely sell the product cheaper than you were able to.

Drop Shipping / E-Commerce / Shopify

Dropshipping is where you act as A middleman for products that are purchased from Chinese manufactures. Say you have A website that is listing A product for $40 USD and when someone places an order for it you purchase it from the manufacturer and ship it to the buyer for A profit.

This can be A very appealing business model because you don’t have to actually have any inventory, It’s A very low upfront investment but that same reason has also caused it to become very saturated.

Similar to Amazon FBA the key is finding A “Hot” product and something that isn’t just A cheap low-quality product.

But unlike selling products on Amazon, it’s going to be your responsibility to get traffic or finding people to buy your products because you’re not listed on A platform like Amazon.

So even though getting an e-commerce store up and running will cost you very little, you will end up spending A lot of time, money, and energy into finding out how to get buyers.

Most people will tell you to set up advertisements on social media and you should, but the cost of advertising on Facebook continues to rise and it’s not as simple as just posting something and having the money roll in.

I’ve seen it so many times where the owners of e-commerce stores are constantly trying to find that “perfect” Ad that allows them to be profitable and is performing well at the same time.

Another crucial thing about dropshipping that gets overlooked is the slow shipping time. With companies like Amazon around where you can virtually get anything you want in A matter of 48 Hours, people don’t tend to want to wait 14-21 days to receive A product they ordered.

Being an E-commerce store owner it is also your responsibility to handle returns/complaints and any other customer service issues that you end up running into.

Social Media Marketing Agency / Running Paid Ads For Local Business Online

I remember when I first started my digital marketing agency and I was so motivated and excited about all of the possibilities. Thinking that I was gonna be able to land clients and was going to be raking money in month after month and was I wrong.

Even though Advertising is vital for every business to stay alive it is unbelievably hard convincing small business owners that they need to be spending money online. Whether that’s Google, Facebook, or various other platforms that you could be running Advertisements on.

It is especially hard when you don’t have any proof or testimonials of your ability to deliver results.

When I first started my digital marketing agency I spent months sending out emails and calling businesses every day trying to get them to let me run advertisements for them. Literally thousands of emails and phone calls trying to land A client, when I finally did it was for free because that was the only way I could convince them.

This business model is very reliant on your client’s ability to close sales, you could send them all of the leads in the world but if they don’t know how to sell their selves or their service it usually becomes A reflection of your service. (Even though that isn’t your job as an Advertising Agency / Lead Generation)

Even though Advertising is vital for every business if things end up going wrong in someone’s business or something comes up the chances of them not paying you to go up drastically.

Also, the problem of actually being able to deliver results to your client and I don’t mean mediocre results. The amount of knowledge needed to actually master things like Facebook Advertising or really any Pay Per Click method is going to cost you a lot of money and as well as A serious time investment.

If you’re great on the phone and are A natural salesman this could be A great option for you, but I know a lot of people aren’t comfortable with that and the reality of Social Media Marketing Agencies is that’s what it becomes. A constant cycle of acquiring clients and convincing them to spend money with you.

Want to learn more about Email Marketing? Check Out: How Much Does Getresponse Cost?

Why Start An Affiliate Marketing Business?

I’m not saying that you can’t have success with any of the businesses I talked about above but in my opinion Affiliate Marketing trumps all of them.

Affiliate marketing by no means is A new business model and is just merely A modern interpretation of an old and very common thing across almost every industry. Making A sale and receiving A commission when someone purchases something through you.

It is still very prevalent in “real world” businesses and is one of the most common ways that people make money online without you even knowing it.

When your bank tells you that they’ll give you $100 if you can get someone you know to open A bank account. That’s Affiliate Marketing..

When your reading or watching A review of A product that you’re thinking about buying more often than not they’re going to end up getting A commission when you purchase through their affiliate link.

So why start an affiliate marketing business?

There Are Thousands Of Products You Could Promote

I mean thousands, maybe even millions… It doesn’t matter what your interests are or what industry you want to sell products in. There is an affiliate program for almost every single thing you can think of.

ClickBank

JVZOO

Warrior Plus

These are just A couple of examples of dedicated networks with thousands of products you could promote in any industry that you could imagine.

Not to mention huge brands that have affiliate programs like:

The commission rate varies throughout what types of products you chose to promote or what industry you’re in.

Physical products such as things on Amazon or Walmart usually range from 1%-15%

Digital products or software companies tend to have a lot higher commission rates 20%-50% and the occasional 100% commission.

You Can Create A Passive Income / Monthly Recurring Income

One of the best parts in my opinion about starting an affiliate marketing business is the fact that you can create A passive income stream. (After the initial work upfront)

You can do this by promoting companies that offer A monthly recurring commission, which is usually found in software companies.

As A way of explaining this I will use Netflix as an example, say you recommended Netflix to someone and they signed up through your affiliate link. You would be paid A commission every time that they paid their bill every month for as long as they used that software.

Say you got A $30 commission for every person that you got signed up at A singular level that doesn’t seem like much, but it can really start to add up as you get more and more people signed up.

100 people would be $3,000 every month or 200 people would be $6,000 A month every time they pay their bill.

A really great part about being an affiliate for most software companies or digital products is you don’t actually need to be A subscriber or pay for their service to be an affiliate.

There is 2 that I would Highly Recommend to anyone who’s planning on starting an affiliate marketing business though. ClickFunnels & Getresponse are both very useful tools for anyone trying to move portions of their business online or start one!

Below Is A List Of My Favorite Recurring Affiliate Programs

You Don’t Have To Handle Customer Service Or Brand Your Own Products

Starting an Affiliate Marketing business doesn’t require you to invest A ton of money to brand your own products or require you to create one.

You can promote Pre-existing products or services and be paid A generous commission when someone purchases through your unique affiliate link.

This also means if any customers want to cancel their order, return something or have any complaints, all of the customer service issues are the owner of the business’s responsibility, not yours.

Summary: Why Start An Affiliate Marketing Business?

There Are Thousands Of Products You Could Promote
It Doesn’t Require A Big Up Front Investment Because You Don’t Have To Brand Or Create Your Own Product Or Service
It Can Become A True Form Of Passive Income If Done Correctly
You Don’t Have To Handle Returns Or Customer Service Issues
You Can Make A Full-Time Income Online From Anywhere In The World As Long As You Have An Internet Connection

Why Start An Affiliate Marketing Business? 25 Best Affiliate Programs.