Part One: Signing up for an account and adding links to your content or site.
I am sure you have heard of affiliate marketing but, do you know how it can make you money while you lay on the beach, or better yet, while you sleep??
When it comes to being an Affiliate, you are either the Affiliate or the Merchant. Being one can make you serious cash but being both can make you a powerhouse.
This blog post will dive into getting started with affiliate marketing. Want to hear how you can make money the easy way? Great, here we go.
Steps to take to get started, using Share-A-Sale, one of the largest and most popular affiliate marketing network, as an example. The link to Share-A-Sale is located below.
If you are interested in signing up for an account, I recommend that you open a second window and follow along.
The Initial Steps
- Sign up for an account on Share-A-Sale, as an Affiliate.
- Set up all your account information, upload a copy of your w-9.
- Set up your profile- this includes completing a series of checkboxes regarding your business and your objectives, along with a brief marketing plan.
- Set up your email preferences.
- Move on to the “Selecting Merchants”
Selecting Merchants
Now … it’s time to start selecting your merchants! This is the fun part. With over 200,000 merchants to choose from, you need a game plan. It’s easy to get carried away and sign up for a few hundred accounts right out of the gate, but keep in mind that unless you hire a monthly web maintenance professional, you’ll be the one updating your website and social media with weekly or monthly updates for coupons, promotions, and art.
On that note, if you don’t want to take the time to add one coupon or image at a time, you can opt to sign up for a free data-feed. A data-feed will auto-feed into your site, but it will not auto-update unless you sign up for a program like “Datafeedr”. “Datafeedr” is fantastic if you know how data-feeds work or you hire a pro.
From the top Banner, Select “Merchants”.
- Start searching.. use business-oriented keywords to narrow your search
For example, If your business is an Airbnb, maybe you might want to include a search for mattresses.
- Continue searching and “joining” programs until you reach the desired number of accounts.
- Now, it’s time to start adding content to your blog, social medial, or website
Adding content to your site
There are many ways to add content to your site. This blog will go over the first option, utilizing links.
- From the drop-down menu, select “Merchant Status” to see all your approved merchant accounts.
- Clicking on “Get Links” will allow you to see the merchant’s text links, banners, CSV (if you are doing a mass import) or allow you to create a custom link
- Select “Get HTML Code”, highlight the HTML code and place it anywhere on your website. It’s that easy.
Subscribe or Follow to Read Part Two of our Affiliate Marketing Series.
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