If you’re in the “make money online” game you’re probably an affiliate marketer, or a network marketer (or maybe a combination of both).
In this post I’m going to discuss what these are, which one is better, and what to look for when deciding which route to go.
Making Money As An Affiliate Marketer
The concept of being an “affiliate” is pretty simple. You partner with a company and are given a special link to share in order for you to get credit for the sale. You can be an affiliate for almost anything. For example, Amazon.com has an affiliate program, and they sell everything. (The downside to Amazon’s affiliate program is that they pay out a very low commission, it starts at 4%.)
Clickbank is another popular platform for affiliates. Clickbank has thousands of offers/products/services you can promote as an affiliate, and they payout around 50%-75% commissions.
(Just starting out? Check out my “Internet Marketing 101” post here.)
Amazon and Clickbank are just 2 examples, there are thousands of options for affiliates. If you do some research, you can find an affiliate program for anything you can think of.
Being an affiliate gives you a product to endorse, and it’s pretty simple because you don’t have to worry about collecting payment, fulfilling the order, shipping, or customer service. All you do is share your link, and if you make a sale, you get a commission.
However, making money as an affiliate is not easy. In order to make sales, you need to have traffic (or a large email list), and preferably traffic that is coming from the search engines (google). When you are getting traffic from search engines, it means that people are searching for what you have, and much more likely to make a purchase.
You won’t be a successful affiliate marketer by posting your links on facebook or other social media platforms. So if that was your plan… it’s time to get back to the drawing board.
The downside to affiliate marketing is that you are acquiring customers for someone else, and earning a one-time commission. New customer acquisition is one of the most challenge parts to every business. Often times when a customer comes back and places another order, you don’t earn a commission.
If you are an affiliate marketer, I recommend looking for, and promoting things that pay you a recurring commission. For example, Aweber’s affiliate program is a good one because they pay a recurring monthly 30% commission, and Aweber is a service that once people create an account and start using it, they don’t cancel it.
My biggest tip for affiliate marketers is to pick what you endorse and promote very carefully. Lead with integrity and only promote products or services that you’ve used yourself, believed that they worth the price, and genuinely feel good about recommending to others. Don’t promote something just to make a quick buck. Don’t recommend something to a stranger if you wouldn’t recommend it to a close friend.
SEE ALSO: A Burger, A Beer, & 3 Email Leads
Network Marketing
Network marketing is different than affiliate marketing in several ways. With network marketing, you are an actual business owner. The customers you generate are yours to keep once you acquire them. So rather than just making a one-time sale and being done with someone, you have the opportunity to build a relationship with your customers, and if they love the product or service you are providing them, you can introduce them the business opportunity and have them join your team.
Network marketing gives you the opportunity to not only make sales, but to also build a team of distributors. Building a team gives you leverage. With a team, now you aren’t only earning commission on your retail sales, you are also earning override commissions (or bonuses) on all of the volume created within your team. And these numbers can add up fast.
Imagine having a team a few hundred people, or even a few thousand people… there is no way that you, as one person, even if you are the greatest salesperson in the word can outsell 100 people.
Similar to affiliate marketing, when choosing a network marketing company, be sure to pick one that has a product that you love. You want to make sure it’s a product that you would use and feel good recommending to others, even if you weren’t being paid to do so. If you’re just in it for the money, people will be able to through that. But if you truly love the product, then recommending it to others becomes easy.
So What Is Better, Affiliate Or Network Marketing?
Network marketing is the winner in my opinion, because it gives you the best of both worlds. You are still recommending a product/service, and you have the opportunity to build a team, which is where the real potential is.
