Welcome to the ultimate affiliate marketing tutorial for beginners. My name is Gugulethu and today I’m going to give you the keys to the kingdom. In this affiliate marketing tutorial I’m going to cover what affiliate marketing is, choosing the right niche, product selection, how to add value, marketing, creating lifetime customers and some advance techniques. I’m going to break down each of those sections in detail to help you get your first affiliate commission in less than 15 days. At the end of this lesson I’m also going to reveal my strategy for making $5000 per month as an affiliate, without creating products and dealing with customer support or spending thousands of dollars on marketing. More about that later on. Affiliate marketing is the best way for anyone to start an online business because it doesn’t require too many resources. All you need is a couple of tools and the right knowledge. Over 90% of affiliates fail because they don’t have the right knowledge. Honestly, you can’t do a simple Google search then WALLAH the next couple of days you’re super rich. Or watch a Youtube video of a girl sitting on her bed giving you an overview of what affiliate marketing is. Most of the stuff you’ll find on Google or Youtube is either outdated or missing some key elements which will help you succeed. You need to learn from someone who has a tested and proven system that can be used successfully over and over again to bring profits in different markets and niches. Having a mentor/coach will also make your learning curve a whole lot easier. That’s the advantage these so called “Gurus” have over you. They all had mentors and join secret mastermind groups that cost $10000+. If it was as simple as doing a Google search and watching a couple of Youtube videos, trust me, everybody would be doing it. There wouldn’t be a need for secret mastermind groups that cost thousands of dollars. So today is your lucky day because I’m spilling all the beans and revealing all the secrets. I’ve got nothing to lose by giving back to the community and my business is stable to even worry about sharing a couple of secrets with you. Let me tell you a secret I learned from the most rich people. They get happiness from helping other people not by helping themselves. Knowing that you helped someone feed their family is more important than making money. That’s where true happiness comes from. Anyway, only 10% of people who’re going to check out this tutorial are going to take action. Out of that 10% only 4% will succeed and only 1% will get serious success. These stats never change, don’t ask me why. Now that you know it will make me feel better if you succeed with my strategy, let’s get started.

What is affiliate marketing?

Basically, affiliate marketing is making money by promoting other people’s products. When you get a sale the owner of the product gives you a share of the profits. Even big companies such as Amazon and Apple have affiliate programs because they know the power that this marketing strategy has. Most people tend to buy through word-of-mouth or if a product is recommended by a particular source they trust. That’s why affiliate marketing works and why lots of big companies use it. It also helps companies reach more people than they would if they were doing all the promotions themselves. Affiliates also add value and trust to a particular brand because most affiliates have a lot of influence. Affiliate marketing also helps brands reach platforms they wouldn’t even dream of reaching. They can even cross boarders and reach clients from all over the world. The way affiliate marketing is done online is by using what is called an affiliate link. Each and every affiliate is given a special link that will track all the sales. An affiliate software is used to put a cookie on someone’s browser to track their actions. Cookies usually last 30 Days and some affiliate software can last for up to a year. Now that you know what affiliate marketing is, how powerful it is and why most brands use this promotion strategy let’s get into how you can get a piece of the pie.

Step 1: Choosing Your Niche

Over the years people have come up with different ways to sell other people’s products with very minimal effort without annoying people or cold selling on the phone. The trick is to find people who’re looking to solve a particular problem then give them a solution and get paid. Obviously it’s much complex than that, it can’t be that easy. This is where a lot of people fail. Take it from me, I’ve been a victim. When I was introduced to affiliate marketing in 2009 I was told that I need to choose a niche that I’m passionate about. Now since I’m a qualified music producer (Graduate) I thought this is going to be a walk in the park. I built a blog teaching music production, adding value to the marketplace and I did pull a lot of traffic. People loved my content and I really enjoyed helping other musicians improve their craft. The only problem is that only a few musicians go all out to make their dream come true. Unlike other careers, for most artists, making music is just a hobby. That means they’re not willing to spend tons of money to make their dream come true. So the marketplace has tons of traffic and a few products to promote as an affiliate. There are few products because product creators remove their products in the marketplace when they see that only a few people are purchasing. Here are the stats for one of my blogs:

As you can see I’m getting 700+ visitors a day on a daily bases, that’s over 21000 unique visitors per month. But look at the monthly affiliate commissions from Amazon for that traffic:

Yep that’s really a disappointed isn’t it? Only $400 in December of last year for a blog that is generating so much traffic? And the traffic is highly targeted because it’s coming from search engines. I keep the blog so that I can use it as a study, it also makes money without me lifting a finger so why not keep that extra $400 a month? The last time I updated the blog was in 2016 so I’ll keep the free money it keeps bringing. So make sure that you don’t make the mistake of going into a niche because you’re passionate about it. This also proves that I had a bad mentor who told me that I need to follow my passion. The truth of the matter is that you don’t need to follow your passion. You need to know where people are spending the most amount of money then position yourself as an expert in that marketplace to succeed as an affiliate marketer. So to help you avoid all the guess work, here are the top 7 profitable niches which work and where people spend tons of money. I also have to mention that you have to avoid trends and seasonal niches. For instance, if you’re in the baseball niche during off season you won’t be making money. You need to go into evergreen markets.

Top 7 Evergreen Niches

1 Fitness and Weight Loss

2 Health

3 Dating and Relationships

4 Pets

5 Beauty Treatments

6 Gadgets and Technology

7 Personal Finance

Those are the most lucrative niches. The reason these markets are profitable is simply because people in these niches are always buying products and there are a lot of products to promote. Unlike mountain biking, no one is buying a new bike every month. Just like in the music niche, I ended up creating my own products to expand because relying on affiliate marketing only wasn’t enough. Same with the gaming niche, there’s huge traffic but there’s only a few affiliate programs and it takes a while to develop a new game. So gamers have to rely on sponsors and it can take years to get sponsorship. The cool thing about the profitable niches I gave you above is that you can go deeper, actually you have to go deeper. Fitness is very competitive so you have to narrow it down further. For example, there’s yoga fitness, bodyweight training, fitness gadgets, personal training etc. Even in yoga fitness you can go deeper. For instance, you can do yoga fitness for adults. The more you narrow down a niche the less competition you’ll have which is great for success. Another reason people fail in affiliate marketing is because they choose a general niche then end up with a wide audience that is interested in different things. You can’t satisfy everyone. You need to have a very targeted audience, that’s another secret most beginners don’t know. The more your audience is targeted the easier it is for you to sell them the product because you know that they’re interested in what you have to offer. If you get stuck the easiest way to get more ideas is to use the Google Keyword planner. It’s a free tool that will help you get ideas for any niche or market. Check it out here: https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home Here’s an example of what it looks like:

The keyword planner should make it easier for you to choose a niche and know if there’s actually an audience for your niche or not. Keyword planner even gives you the level of competition for the niche you’re going for. Always go for Low competition keywords when you’re getting started and escalate as you improve your affiliate marketing game. Once you’ve found your niche then take that keyword put it in Google and Youtube search to see what kind of topics your competitors are posting. That will give you an idea of what’s popular and what your audience really want. This will help you avoid guess work. Then you can start searching for products.

Step 2: Product Selection For Affiliates

Once you have chosen a profitable niche then you have half of the battle won. Choosing a product to promote is an easy task. There are a couple of websites you can use to get good products for the niche you chose. One of the oldest and most simple to use is a website called Clickbank. Register with Clickbank on their website here: https://www.clickbank.com Simply click “Create Account” and follow the simple steps. Once you’re registered then you can get your affiliate links by going to the “Clickbank Marketplace”. On the left sidebar of the clickbank marketplace you’ll see a list of different categories. Choose the category that is related to the niche you chose.

If you haven’t found a niche for your affiliate marketing campaign then click the search button without typing anything and clickbank will display the most selling products at the moment you’re doing the search. If you choose to promote any of those top products you have a higher chance of generating sales because those products have been tested by other marketers and they’re selling well. To get your affiliate links on clickbank simply click the “Promote” button next to the product you would like to promote. But first make sure that you visit the website to see if the product is really worth promoting and that the sales page is up-to-date. If you look at the sales page and don’t feel like you would purchase the product then don’t promote it. Put yourself in a customer’s shoes to decide if whether the product is worth promoting or not. The easiest way to find out is to purchase the product and try it for yourself to see if it works. I wouldn’t recommend promoting products you haven’t purchased it makes your marketing hard. Once you have all the steps above done then you have all your research done. A lot of people fail because they never do the research. Never skip the research it’s really crucial for your success in affiliate marketing. Spend an hour or 2 finding the right niche and choosing at least 5 products to promote. If any of that is confusing then go to Youtube, in the search bar type "how to choose a product on clickbank" it should take you 10 minutes to learn how to use the website. Next up we’ll start with the marketing part. I’ll show you how to setup everything in a way that will help you guarantee success. The biggest mistake beginners make is to get an affiliate link then start spamming it all over the internet. Others spend money promoting an affiliate link through online paid advertising. This is a terrible mistake. In the next section I’ll show you how super affiliates do it the right way.

Learn how to do affiliate marketing the right way, NO FLUFF only practical strategies that you can use TODAY to build a sustainable online business... Click to Tweet

Step 3: Getting A Domain Name

Getting a domain name helps you look more professional, it helps you standout and it helps you cloak your links. Cloaking your links is very important. Affiliate links are long URLs with a bunch of numbers and alphabets which makes them hard to remember. Here’s an example of an affiliate link: https://26739mcl18f2imd1ies23p0w1t.hop.clickbank.net/ See how unclean that is? A lot of people are not going to trust a URL that looks like that. So when you have a domain name you can cloak the link and turn it into something like this: www.yourwebsite.com/productname That’s much easier for your audience to remember as compared to the naked affiliate URL above. It looks professional and it’s trustworthy. Domains are really cheap, a domain only costs around $8 for the first year then around $14 for your second year and beyond. The best place for me to get a domain is namecheap. I love namecheap because they give you a free whois protection. This hides your personal information. When you get a domain from other providers they make you pay extra for whois protection. So people can simply go to whois.com to see who owns the domain, their physical address, email and other personal information. So Namecheap hides all that information from the public for free and they give you a very cheap ssl certificate. Check out Namecheap on this URL: http://mailpreneur.com/namecheap-discount Make sure that you choose a domain that is related to your niche or general market. Feel free to use the ideas you got from the Google Keyword Planner. Also make sure that it’s very short and easy to remember, avoid using long domain names. Use something that is catchy and memorable. You can Google your main keywords or niche to find some good ideas and get a feel of what your competitors are using. Once you’ve got an idea for your domain name then go to Namecheap to register your domain name. Choose a .com if it’s available or at least a .net because people are used to them as compared to other domain extensions. Now that you have your domain name then you need to connect it to a funnel builder.

Step 4: Connecting Your Domain Name With Clickfunnels

Some affiliate marketers would recommend that you must get hosting then build a website. There’s nothing wrong with that but that approach requires a lot of resources and it’s very complicated for beginners. That approach is also expensive. With Clickfunnels you kill too many birds with one stone. You can build a website, funnels, E-commerce store, blog, sales pages, optin pages, get an autoresponder etc. When you join Clickfunnels you also get webinars and free training from top marketers who’re making 6 to 7 figures online. That's where they reveal their secrets and teach stuff that you can use to grow your affiliate business. You also get a chance to ask them questions live, which is just priceless. By building a website from scratch you’ll have to pay for monthly hosting (which is not cheap), spend hundreds of dollars and time to setup your website for affiliate marketing. You’ll need a good sales funnel to become successful in affiliate marketing. That requires a lot of resources, money and coding. But with Clickfunnels everything is just plug and play. They have a lot of templates you can use. You can find tested and proven funnels that are plug-and-play and start making money immediately without coding or spending crazy amount of money and time. You can try Clickfunnels for 14 Days with No Risk required to see if it’s for you or not and cancel any time. Use this link to get a 14 Days trial: http://mailpreneur.com/clickfunnels The 14 Days Trial comes with a free domain name. Connecting your domain name with Clickfunnels will make your URLs short and easy to remember for your audience. It will also help you look professional and trustworthy. Once you’re logged into Clickfunnels then you can connect your domain with Clickfunnels and move on to the next step where I’ll talk about how to maximize profits.

Step 5: Building A High Converting Sales Funnel

One thing you have to keep in mind about affiliate marketing is that everyone and their mother is promoting the product you chose in step 2. So what makes you different? Why should people buy from your link? This is why sales funnels are really important. You’re going to use your sales funnel to add value, build trust and standout from everyone else. Don’t get turned off by the word “Sales” you won’t be selling if your funnel is built the right. Here are the most important things you’ll need to build a successful affiliate marketing sales funnel:

1 Free Gift that is related to the product you’ll be promoting

2 Optin Page to capture emails (aka squeeze page)

3 Thank You Page where they’ll access their free gift

4 Autoresponder to store emails and automate your marketing

5 3 Pieces of FREE Content

These are the 5 steps that will make you stand out from the crowd. The key is to position yourself as an expert or the go-to-guy whenever someone needs help in your market. When someone has a problem they have to think of you first before they can consider someone else to help them solve a problem. You don’t even have to be an expert or Guru you just need to know a niche/subject a bit more than the average person. Now, let me explain all the 5 steps above in detail and show you how everything works. Let’s start with step 1, the free gift.

The Free Gift

In order for people to give you their email address you’ll have to give them something in exchange. A free gift that will help them solve a problem works great. This will help you build trust with your audience and add value to their lives. If the free gift is good then when you recommend a product later there’s a higher chance they’ll buy it from your affiliate link. You have to come up with a free gift that will make it easier for you to recommend one of the products you chose to promote. Let’s say you chose the Fitness niche and one of the products you want to promote first is all about losing belly fat. Your free gift could be about “The 6 Secret Exercises That Will Help You Have A Flat Belly”. Then in the free gift you give them the 6 exercises. It could be in PDF format with images or preferably in video format. The key is to solve their problem no matter which niche you’re in just make sure that the free gift really adds value to your audience and if possible, it changes their lives. NEVER HOLD BACK! Because the more they trust you the easier it will be for you to make money from your affiliate links. Choose a niche where you know that you’ve got information that an average person doesn’t know. You can even outsource your free gift from freelance websites. You can pay an expert to do the free gift for you if you have the budget. It’s not expensive at all, check out freelancer.com and you’ll be surprised how low cost this service is. Once you have your free gift then you need to build an optin page.

Optin Page

This is also known as a squeeze page. This is the page you’ll use to capture people’s email addresses. If you don’t know what an optin page is then here’s an example:

Clickfunnels makes this process a breeze even if you’re not tech savvy. They have a bunch of templates you can choose from. Once someone gives you their email address then you know that they really want a solution to solve their problem. This process separates those who’re serious about solving their problem from those who’re not really serious. Now your job is to position yourself as an expert and recommend products that you believe will help them and that’s how you get paid. So make sure that you treat them right with respect, remember that they’re a real human being not just an ATM. If you help them solve their problem they’ll most likely recommend you to others which makes your marketing job 10x easier. So always think long term.

Thank You Page

Next up you need to build a Thank you page where your new subscribers can access or download their free gift. Don’t sell anything at this point. Remember, your goal is to be different from everyone else. Most affiliate marketers use the Thank You page to start their sales process. In order to standout just focus on adding more value. Again, Clickfunnels has a lot of templates for these types of pages. Choose one and call it a day, don’t complicate this process.

Autoresponder

This is the most crucial part of the puzzle. An autoresponder is where all the emails you collect are stored. You’ll be using the autoresponder to automate your marketing process. The beauty of having an autoresponder is that you setup your marketing campaign once and it will sell for you even when you’re sleeping or even if you’re on vacation. So basically, you pre-save your email messages for a couple of days or even months and then the autoresponder will send those emails to all your subscribers every day, hands-free. This is called email marketing and I’ll cover it in depth in upcoming tutorials. All autoresponder providers come with tutorials about how to use their platforms so just follow their tutorials and you should be fine. They also interview experts to share some secrets about how to maximize profits and some stuff that help them take their businesses to the next level. The autoresponder that I recommend is Getresponse. Get your 30 Days trial here: http://mailpreneur.com/getresponse-trial Try it out for 30 Days and if it’s not for you then you can cancel your trial, they also have tons of video tutorials on Youtube. I’ve been using getresponse for over 7 years and have never had an issue they didn’t fix. They have a responsive 24/7 real-time support system. Highly recommended. Depending on which plan you choose when you join Clickfunnels you can also get a free autoresponder. That's another thing I really love about Clickfunnels, it's an all in one package. They offer you all the tools you need to run a successful online business. I still use Getresponse because I'm used to it and have been using it for many years. I'll be switching to the one Clickfunnels gave me soon, just to cut costs. Join the Clickfunnels 14 days trial on the link I gave you above to get a free autoresponder.

3 Pieces of Content

This is how you stack up the value you’ve added to your subscribers, build more trust and position yourself as an expert in your niche. You’re going to use this strategy to promote each and every product that you’re going to recommend to your audience/subscribers. Instead of saying here’s a product that will help you solve your problem, you build up to the sale gently. This helps you avoid looking like a salesman. Look at the product you chose to promote, determine what it teaches and see if you can break it into 3 simple strategies. Be as broad as you can, don’t be too specific. Here’s a typical scenario if you’re promoting a weight loss product. Day 2 after they’ve given you their email address, remember Day 1 you gave them their free gift. Day 2 you give them another free tutorial, this is your 1st piece of free content. Maybe the tutorial could be about “ How to Lose Weight without Going on a Diet ”. The tutorial could be in a PDF format, blog or preferably video. The format doesn’t matter that much, the most important thing is the quality of the content. Make sure it solves a problem and offers tons of value.

you give them another free tutorial, this is your 1st piece of free content. Maybe the tutorial could be about “ ”. The tutorial could be in a PDF format, blog or preferably video. The format doesn’t matter that much, the most important thing is the quality of the content. Make sure it solves a problem and offers tons of value. Day 3 you give them another free tutorial. This is your 2nd piece of free content. This one could be called “ 14 Things You Can Do Today to Lose Weight Quickly! ”

you give them another free tutorial. This is your 2nd piece of free content. This one could be called “ ” During Day 4 you start introducing the product you’re going to recommend to them but you have to play it smart. This is where you take 1 strategy from the product you’re about to promote. Use something like “ The Weight Loss Secret I Learned from John Smith ”. In the tutorial you share the strategy but never sell at this point, just add value. By the time you start promoting the product when they see the name John Smith on the product page they’ll realize where you got the tip and this will increase your sales.

you start introducing the product you’re going to recommend to them but you have to play it smart. This is where you take 1 strategy from the product you’re about to promote. Use something like “ ”. In the tutorial you share the strategy but never sell at this point, just add value. By the time you start promoting the product when they see the name John Smith on the product page they’ll realize where you got the tip and this will increase your sales. Day 5 you don’t send anything. Let them idle and most people will be sending you emails asking for more.

you don’t send anything. Let them idle and most people will be sending you emails asking for more. Day 6 you’re still not selling. During day 6 you send them an email telling them you have something special that you’ll be sending them tomorrow. Build Anticipation. This is why big companies like Apple and Jordan sell tons of products first day because they know how to build anticipation for their audience. That’s why people queue up before the stores open to get the new iPhone or Jordan sneakers.

To close the email for Day 6 give them links to the previous tutorials. That should keep them busy while they’re waiting for your next email. Others might have missed some of the free tutorials so it's a good thing to send them the previous tutorials. That’s it for your 3 pieces of free content. Don’t hold back, make sure that you deliver the best advice that will definitely change someone’s life. Add as much value as you can. Getting Your First Sale Day 7 is when you start promoting your affiliate link. Don’t just send them the link and say buy this. You have to be strategic about how you promote your affiliate links. Here’s a good way to promote your affiliate links without sounding like a salesman. Day 7 – In your email tell a short story ( keep it very short ) about how the product helped you. You can also tell someone else’s story about how the product worked for them then send them to the offer for more info.

– In your email tell a short story ( ) about how the product helped you. You can also tell someone else’s story about how the product worked for them then send them to the offer for more info. Day 8 – Explain the benefits of purchasing the product and what would happen if they don’t purchase. Tell them they'll stay fat and miserable or something horrible.

– Explain the benefits of purchasing the product and what would happen if they don’t purchase. Tell them they'll stay fat and miserable or something horrible. Day 9 – Use scarcity, let them know that the product will be taken out of the marketplace without notice and this is your last email about it. That’s it! Anything more than 3 days to promote an affiliate product is just overkill. After your first promotion, wait for at least a week then repeat the system to promote a different product. Do 2 products a month, anything more than that is just overkill and will result in too many unsubscribers. Make sure that you’re not predictable about your promotion. Maybe on product 2 only use 2 pieces of free content instead of 3. Once you’re predictable then people will know that after 3 pieces of free content you’ll sell them something and they won’t open the rest of the sales emails. Sometimes add your own bonuses that will make the product you’re promoting more appealing, which will increase sales.

Step 6: Affiliate Link Cloaking & Tracking

This is more of an advanced strategy but very crucial. I’ve already explained how important it is to cloak your links. There are 2 ways you can cloak your links. You can use free cloaking tools such as bitly.com and google URL shortner. The problem with these is that they’re not trustworthy. A lot of people have used these URL shortners to spam people. They have a bad reputation, they're overused and will make you look unprofessional. You also won’t standout from the rest of your competitors. The best way is to use professional link cloaking and tracking services such as ClickMagick. You’ll be able to connect your domain name and make your links short and easy to remember for your audience. ClickMagick makes it easy to track your traffic, track sales funnel and conversions. You’ll be able to do split testing for your affiliate links. Let’s say you’re promoting a product but not sure if you should promote the text sales page or the video sales page. You can use ClickMagick to test which sales page converts better for your audience and avoid guess work. You can also do retargeting, avoid link fraud and a whole lot more. When you do affiliate marketing you need to track everything. You need to know where everyone is coming from so that you can focus your energy and time in the right place/platform. You also need to protect yourself from thieves who want to steal your affiliate commissions. Try ClickMagick for 14 Days to see if it’s for you or not. Use this link to activate your trial: http://mailpreneur.com/clickmagick-trial Also use ClickMagick to do link retargeting Ads, this will help you maximize profits and get DEAD CHEAP traffic to your affiliate links. ClickMagick is a must have whether you’re a beginner or a super affiliate. They have simple to follow tutorials in case you get stuck and 24/7 support system.

Conclusion

This is how you do affiliate marketing the right way. This is how you stand out from other affiliate marketers who are promoting the same product you’re promoting. The reason this strategy works so well is because you add too much value for your audience so even when you’re selling they still think you’re adding value. That is why you need to always promote products you believe in, preferably products you’ve purchased and used. Once you’ve promoted at least 3 products you can skip the entire process and just do product reviews then give them your affiliate at the end of the review. But don’t do product reviews from the beginning, first add value, build trust and position yourself as an expert. Sometimes you just send them an email telling them not to purchase a certain product because you’ve tried it and it sucked. That will increase the sales for your next promotion. Don’t overdo this though. I know a lot of super affiliate marketers will hate me for giving you guys all these secrets but I don’t care If you would like to see how I make $5000 per month with affiliate marketing then fill the form below.

This stuff will never be saturated, not everyone who reads this is going to take action and everyone is into different markets and niches. The pie is too big and enough for everyone.