The Basics of Affiliate Marketing for Newbies

Every affiliate marketing newbie’s greatest asset is knowledge; understanding the basic concepts of successful affiliate marketing. So how do we define the overall concept of affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing basically means selling someone else’s products online and earning a commission for each sale.

As an affiliate marketer you will research and find products to promote on your website. Each time you make a sale through your affiliate link you will earn a portion of that sale. The commissions can vary from as low as 7% to a generous 75%. The sales are tracked through your unique affiliate ID which is assigned to you at the time you sign up for a specific affiliate program. Your unique affiliate ID is tracked and each time a sale is made through your link it’s recorded. Some of the better affiliate programs give you a wide variety of marketing tools to help you successfully promote their products as well as a comprehensive member’s area to make it easier for you to track your affiliate sales and commissions.

Affiliate marketing is a good way to get started online. You can be set up and ready to go within a few days and there is no need to spend any time creating your own products or purchasing inventory. You are simply promoting other people’s products, which means the vendor is actually responsible for order fulfillment, customer service and anything else related to the sale. You simply refer the sale to them and get paid a commission for it.

For example if you have a love of cooking, you can create a website around cooking related topics and include tips, recipes, and reviews of all your favorite cooking gadgets. You can then find affiliate programs online and promote some of those products on your website. You can find programs by doing a search under your chosen topic such as “cooking” and adding the words “affiliate program” to that term.

You can also find affiliate programs at places like CJ.com.

Although affiliate marketing is an easy way to get started online, there is a little more to it than just throwing up a few links and banners and waiting for the affiliate check to arrive. Heads-up, affiliate marketing newbies, it takes time and effort to make sales.

The best way to do this is by providing quality information on your website and only linking to affiliate products where appropriate. Another good tip is to review the products you promote so that you can accurately describe all the features – good and bad. Your customers will appreciate honest feedback and will be more likely to buy from you if you give them good quality information and honest reviews.

Take Your Seat in Affiliate Classroom 2.0

We’re extreme affiliate “newbies” (and sisters) who’ve been on a bit of a quest to learn more about affiliate marketing. Why? Well, like most people these days, we’ve heard that there’s gold in them there websites and quite frankly – we want some of it. Our journey to find just the right affiliate marketing training led us to newly revised Affiliate Classroom 2.0. (Newbie Nugget: the links in this post are our own affiliate link, just so you know.)

What It Is

From what we hear, the mega-improved Affiliate Classroom 2.0 is a program that teaches you how to become a high earning affiliate marketer. Unlike other programs though, that are book or video lesson based, Affiliate Classroom 2.0 is a website community devoted to all things affiliate.

Which means that once you sign up, you get access to Affiliate Classroom 2.0, coursework on how to become a successful affiliate marketer along with tools, support, the forum and an amazing learning environment where you’re guaranteed to find answers to your specific affiliate marketing related questions.

Affiliate Classroom 2.0 launched with a whopping 62 courses and plans to add more great courses every month! There are actually almost 250 courses outlined for the students who will learn in an interactive environment at their own pace. If you’re starting off part-time as an affiliate marketer, you’ll be able to access Affiliate Classroom 24/7 as your schedule and lifestyle permits. This is a perfect solution for newbies who wants to work independently and progress at their own warp speed.

Something truly unique to Affiliate Classroom 2.0 is that this training option actually allows you to become “certified” – a new opportunity that paves the way for bigger affiliate commissions and even “super affiliate” status down the road. At the end of the day, you have to decide what kind of training works best with your learning style. Our goal is give you some of the options we’ve found with the hopes that something will be a good fit for you.

The Must-Have Super Affiliate Handbook

So, you’re an extreme newbie wanting to make money online as an affiliate marketer, are you? Even if you’re just getting started, like us, you probably have already noticed how much information there is out there about affiliate marketing and how overwhelming it can be? Do you wish there was just one book – one handy reference source with all the basics to get you up and running? Well there is – the Super Affiliate Handbook and we have it in our hot little hands!  And yes, the links here are our very own affiliate link.

The Super Affiliate Handbook was written by veteran affiliate marketer, Rosalind “Ros” Gardiner. She’s a legendary “super affiliate” which means for us extreme newbies that she consistently makes a boatload of money (try $400 000 and that was a few years ago). Ros’s Super Affiliate Handbook has everything you need to go from rank amateur to super affiliate money making machine in no time flat.

What Sets it Apart

Let’s be candid here – we visited Amazon.com and there are plenty of books there and other e-books online that deal with the subject of Internet marketing and, specifically, affiliate marketing.  But our basic research shows (we bought a few of those other books) that the Super Affiliate Handbook really goes into detail, and gives you step-by-step instructions that you can follow easily (that’s a biggie for us) and replicate.

What Ros has done in her book is create a road map to Internet and affiliate marketing success. Instead of broad generalities, and rough ideas, Ros delivers concise instructions and detailed information. We like the fact that she takes you from conceptualizing to strategies on setting up your site and monetizing it.  The Super Affiliate Handbook even gives you a detailed breakdown of how to track your results (hopefully that means “success” at some point in the near future).  Ros makes it easy for anyone to build a firm foundation for becoming an accomplished affiliate.

What it Covers

In the Super Affiliate Handbook,” Ros includes:

•    Determining whether you have what it takes to make it in the very competitive world of affiliate marketing (take note extreme newbies – everyone successful affiliate started from the beginning).
•    How to brainstorm your business, and create a business plan.
•    Software recommendations – but not just any software – the same software she uses herself for her mega earning affiliate sites.
•    Information on how to find the best, biggest earning affiliate products.
•    Everything you ever wanted to know about how to market affiliate products.

This is just a small sampling from what is probably one of the most comprehensive affiliate marketing guides out there today. Whether you are already an affiliate, looking to improve your game or whether you’re an extreme newbie who’s never sold anything online, the Super Affiliate Handbook is a must-have, detailed reference guide. If you want to join the legions of people making money online and you want to succeed fast, we suggest you get your hands on this book – quick by clicking on the green button at the top of this article.