Affiliate marketing is basically the process of marketing someone else’s product. If you promote their product on your website and they click a link to purchase it on their website you will get a percentage of the sale called a commission.
Although many see this as passive or residual income, a lot of hard work has to be done to build up a reputable website that gets a lot of traffic before you can reap the benefits of very little work to obtain passive or residual income. After this is done then very little maintenance is needed. If you happen to have a website that already gets a ton of traffic then just dive in.
Physical Products vs. Subscription Services vs. Digital Products
For physical products, the money you get will be one-time only. But if you make a sale that is subscription based you can continue to get a percentage of the sale for as long as the consumer uses your affiliate’s subscription service. Many digital products that you can promote to sell are based on a subscription basis such as SEO tools, but also can be a software game that is a one-time purchase.
Commission Rate
A commission rate is the percentage of the sale you will receive after they make the purchase from one of your links to their products. For example, a 4% commission rate on an item is $4.
Cookie Duration
A cookie is a bit of code embedded on the link on your website that people follow when they make a purchase of the product you are promoting. This allows the affiliate or affiliate marketing company to know who the sale comes from so that they can pay you. Cookie duration is a time-stamp on the link you provide on your website that allows you to receive credit for the sale as long as it is within that time-stamp. For example, if the affiliate or affiliate company has a cookie duration of one day this means that the person who clicked the link on your website has one day to make the purchase on their website in order to qualify that you get paid.
The interesting thing about this is that even though Amazon’s cookie duration is only 24 hours there is a plus side to using Amazon. Once they make the purchase on Amazon’s website if they purchase anything else within the 24-hour time frame you will get credit for those purchases as well. This means that if they follow a link on your website to purchase a camping tent on their website the visitor will see ‘Related Products’ on Amazon’s website that they can purchase and if they purchase some sleeping bags also you will get credit for that as well. As a side note, Amazon was the first website that utilized ‘Related Products’ and ‘People who have purchased this have also purchased…’ which I feel was the shopping selling technique that really put them on the map. This technique alone helped generate over 300% more sales on their website and this technique has been copied many times in other shopping cart websites.
Acceptance by Affiliates
You may think that it is easy to be allowed to sell their products. In the case of eBay, this is true but in the case of many other affiliates, you have to be accepted by their guidelines such as having an important enough website that gets enough traffic. If you cannot meet the specific affiliate guidelines then you cannot be accepted to sell their products on your website.
Affiliate List
There are many affiliates and affiliate marketing company’s out there. Here are some of them listed below that pertain to hobbies that I am interested in. Cars and the Outdoors. It would be important for you to pick an affiliate that you are passionate about what you would want to sell to people. To find an affiliate that matches what you love type into google “what I love” affiliate program. Where you replace “what I love” with “cars” or “outdoor” or whatever. It is important to put what you love in quotation marks to help with searching for your custom affiliate program to use. When you put something in quotation marks into Google search it will look for that EXACT phrase.
- Automotive Affiliates
- Advanced Auto Parts
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission Rate: 4%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Amazon
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission Rate: 1% to 10%
- Cookie Duration: 24 Hours
- Auto Anything
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission Rate: 2%
- Cookie Duration: 1 Day
- AutoBarn.net
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission Rate: 8%
- Cookie Duration: 45 Days
- Autozone
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission Rate: 3%
- Cookie Duration: 45 Days
- Avis
- Niche: Automotive Rental
- Type: Service
- Commission Rate: 4%
- Cookie Duration: 1 Day
- BuyAutoParts.com
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 5% to 8%
- Cookie Duration: 7 Days
- JC Whitney
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 8%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Tire Rack
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 6%
- Cookie Duration: 60 Days
- Vivid Racing
- Niche: Automotive
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 4% to 5%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Advanced Auto Parts
- Outdoor Affiliates
- Amazon
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission Rate: 1% to 10%
- Cookie Duration: 24 Hours
- Backcountry
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 4% to 12% depending upon product
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Bass Pro Shops
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 5%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Cabella’s
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 3%
- Cookie Duration: 14 Days
- CampingMaxx
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 10%
- Cookie Duration: Unknown
- Coleman
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 5%
- Cookie Duration: 14 Days
- Hyperlite Mountain Gear
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 8%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Marmot
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 8%
- Cookie Duration: 90 Days
- Moosejaw
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 3% to 10%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- Mountain Hardware
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 8% to 10%
- Cookie Duration: 21 Days
- Outdoor Gear Exchange
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 6%
- Cookie Duration: 30 Days
- REI
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 5%
- Cookie Duration: Unknown
- Sportsman Guide
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 1%, 3%, 7%, and 10%
- Cookie Duration: 7 Days
- US Outdoor
- Niche: Outdoors
- Type: Physical Goods
- Commission: 8%
- Cookie Duration: 120 Days
- Amazon
- Affiliate Marketing Companies
- AvantLink
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- AWIN: Global Affiliate Marketing Network
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- Clickbank
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor (Can be as high as 50%!)
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- Commission Junction
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- eBay
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: 50% to 70% of Auction Fees
- Cookie Duration: 24 hours for buy it now and 10 days for auctions
- Peerfly
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- ShareASale
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- Skimlinks
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: Varies by Vendor
- Cookie Duration: Varies by Vendor
- Walmart
- Niche: Everything
- Type: Physical and Digital Goods
- Commission: 1% to 4%
- Cookie Duration: 3 Days
- AvantLink