Last Updated on October 22, 2024 by Kari
About 15 years ago, I decided to leave my job at a nursing home and write online full-time. I didn’t know what writing online entailed, but I felt a calling to do it, so I started looking into it. I had to wade through a lot of crap before I found my way, but now I’m doing what I feel like I’m meant to be doing. If you ask me what I do for a living, I say that I’m a freelance writer, blogger, and affiliate marketer. So, if you’ve been thinking about becoming an affiliate marketer, let me tell you what it’s like and give you some tips to make the most out of it.
What It’s Like To Be An Affiliate Marketer
Being an affiliate just means you are someone who recommends products, and you get a commission if someone buys those products off your recommendation. It’s like a sales person, but you get to choose what kind of products you want to sell and you can change what you sell at any time you want.
Pretty much everything out there has an affiliate program, especially online products and services. The commission varies from company to company and service to service, but the beauty is that you get to pick what you want to be an affiliate for.
For instance, if someone is only offering you a few bucks to recommend their $400 product, then I highly recommend finding something else (unless you really think it will help people), because affiliate marketing is not easy. You need to build content – whether through a blog, vlog, or social channel – and build trust with people. It takes a lot of dedication and work. And your time is valuable, just like it would be at a regular job. You deserve to get paid for any job you do, including affiliate marketing, so keep that in mind if you decide to become one.
The biggest things I’ve experienced as an affiliate marketer is that you get to live your passion and help other people by doing so. It’s a win-win.
In short, this is a job where you get to talk about what you love and help other people find tools, products, and services to help them become happier or more successful. It doesn’t matter what you are passionate about, you can become an affiliate marketer around that passion and make money by doing it.
It’s also a job where you get to try things out and then do reviews about those things to help other people make an informed decision. It’s why I started this blog, Eat Learn Write. I use a lot of stuff in my life and I have a lot of experiences, so why not write about them and help people make better decisions in their life?
If you have a hobby, then becoming an affiliate marketer means you get to work on your hobby and make money. For instance, if you love to plan and schedule, you can be an affiliate marketer for that. You can create a blog or vlog around planning and then recommend the tools that you use or the books that you use.
Food blogging is also popular. If you love to cook and create meals, then you can blog or vlog about it and then recommend products that you use in your kitchen to people who want to cook like you. Pinch of Yum is a great example of affiliate marketing at its best. Lindsay is passionate about food, and while she doesn’t just do affiliate marketing, she does do a lot of it on her blog. In fact, according to one of their income reports, they made over $5,000 a month just from an affiliate page where they show people how to start a food blog in three steps.
Who Should Be An Affiliate Marketer?
If you have a passion, and you want to talk about it, then being an affiliate marketer is right up your alley. It allows you to wake up each day, do things you are passionate about, write or vlog about them, and then earn money.
I think, though, that’s important to open yourself up to other ways of making money too. Affiliate marketing could earn you a full-time income, but sponsored posts, ads, and creating products are additional revenue streams that can help you increase your income even more. Therefore, if you like to create and expand, and you are willing to put the work in to do so, affiliate marketing could be a part of your business that works with other parts to give you the income you want.
Who Shouldn’t Be An Affiliate Marketer?
If you just want to make money no matter whether it’s ethical or not, then being an affiliate marketer is not for you. People will see through your desire to make money and they won’t trust you enough to buy products you recommend. Moreover, you will recommend really crappy products that make other people miserable, and that can bring a lot of bad karma into your life.
You may not believe in karma, but know that if your subconscious mind realizes that you are doing bad things in this world, it will find a way to punish you.
Your business may collapse.
You may lose all of your money.
You may have someone scam you out of your money.
Or something else may happen, but rest assured, what goes around comes around.
5 Biggest Benefits Of Affiliate Marketing
- Do what you love! I can’t overstate this enough. It’s a great way to follow your passions in life and do what you love each day.
- Help other people becoming happier and healthier through your recommendations. Improve their lives.
- Work from anywhere. Don’t feel like working from home? No problem! Go to a coffee shop. Want to travel for a month and keep up your business? You can do that as an affiliate marketer.
- Grow as a person. Part of being an affiliate marketer means learning new things and trying new things, so you get to grow as a result of doing your job.
- Your income is only limited by your energy and time. If you are willing to learn the ins and outs of affiliate marketing, put in the time, and put in the energy, then nobody can tell you what you will be capable of making.
The Bad Parts Of Being An Affiliate Marketer
- People are suspicious of you. A lot of people are suspicious of affiliate marketers. They think that marketers are just trying to make them buy something so that they can earn money. Often, this causes people not to buy something they really need or want. They just don’t want to help someone else make money by doing so. I don’t understand these people. If I’m going to buy a product, I would rather help someone earn a commission for recommending it to me than avoid buying it all together. I don’t live in a greedy state like that, and, honestly, them being an affiliate doesn’t affect my payment or purchase at all, so why would I care? But, even if you have the best intentions and earn people’s trust, some of them don’t want YOU to earn money off THEIR purchase. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so this is something you just need to accept as an affiliate marketer.
- It can take a while to make money. You have to build a following if you are a blogger or vlogger or social media affiliate marketer. Then you have to build their trust. You can make money by getting your articles or vlogs linked in search engines and having people naturally find your reviews and recommendations, but it can take a while for that to happen. You should focus on building some readers or followers first because they are the ones that will stick with you and follow through with your recommendations if they need something, and that takes work.
- Some companies are frustrating to work with. I put all my eggs in one basket, Mindvalley, because I really believed in the content and how it can inspire personal growth (and I still do). But the affiliate program has made me want to quit more times than I can count. They’ve changed their rules, commissions, and communication, and things have been more frustrating for me than rewarding with them. I believe I’ve been jipped by them time and time again and it’s left me bitter towards the affiliate program and Vishen Lakhiani, since he’s the guy in charge making the decisions.
- If you put all your effort into one product and it collapses, you’re screwed.
How To Become An Affiliate Starting Today
- Pick a niche. Don’t just go into affiliate marketing blindly or you will waste your time. If you are passionate about happiness, then start a blog or a vlog on happiness. If you are passionate about writing, then start a blog or vlog on that.
- Find products that you use and see if they have an affiliate program. If they don’t, check out Amazon and see if it sells the products, and then become an Amazon affiliate because you can recommend the products through your Amazon links.
- Start writing or vlogging about what you enjoy. Just do it. Don’t overthink it.
- Learn, learn, learn. Follow other affiliate marketers and expand your knowledge about what a good affiliate marketer is and does. The more you know, the more you can implement beneficial practices into your affiliate marketing and earn more. So, never stop learning.
This is a short article on becoming an affiliate marketer. There are huge books written about affiliate marketing… in other words, there is a lot to learn!
This article is just meant to show you how I feel about affiliate marketing and that affiliate marketing is a possible career path if that’s what you want. I’m on it and succeeding with it. While I focus on freelance writing for the majority of my work time, affiliate marketing is a big part of my monthly income. Moreover, I think it’s a great way to reach a lot of people and influence them positively, as well as create a better world.
There’s plenty I haven’t covered, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask below and I’ll do my best to answer them.
