If you’ve come to this article without any knowledge of affiliate marketing at all, let’s start with some good news: being an affiliate is much easier and involves less work than being a trader!
Being a successful long-term trader requires an ongoing commitment and a high level of up-front knowledge, whereas, at its most basic, being an affiliate can require little more than having a website and some well placed ads. With such low barriers to entry, you’ve got the potential to earn decent money without ever having go near an Ichimoku Cloud or Stochastic Oscillator!
However, to get good at referring and generate regular income as an affiliate, you do have to take it seriously. That's because becoming an affiliate is like starting a business; you need to do your research, put together a plan and set yourself up for the best chance of success. If you can check those boxes, once you’re up and running, your little affiliate business has the potential to take on a life of its own!
We'll be covering extensively about how an affiliate program works and what’s actually involved, but let’s do a quick summary of some important points:
Becoming an affiliate is very simple, but the better prepared you are the greater your chances will be of getting your referrals rolling quickly. So, here are a few more things to consider when you’re just starting out:
Just like trading, affiliate marketing offers you the potential to get what you want out of it. For some people it’s the definition of a side gig – a way to earn a bit of extra cash while investing very little time and next to no capital. For others, it’s the pathway to a new career and a lifestyle funded by a flourishing referral network! The direction you choose to take when building your affiliate network will be shaped by the goals you have and, as with many things in life, you’ll get out of it what you put in.
Affiliate marketing is a numbers game, so if you want to generate a lot of commission you’re going to need to refer a lot of people. Naturally, that’s going to be easier to do if your website gets a lot of traffic because, at a basic level, there’ll be more people to potentially see your ads and click on them.
That flow-on effect is also the reason you should make efforts to continually build your online presence and traffic. While you’re thinking of ways to direct more of your users towards your broker partner’s site, you should also consider ways of drive more traffic to your site, which is the source of your referrals.
It’s healthy to have big dreams of making a good income from referrals, because that dream is a reality for a lot of people. But it’s also important to be realistic when you’re starting out and understand that not everyone who lands on your website will see your referral ad, even fewer will click it, and not everyone who clicks that ad will sign up with the broker.
The underlying point is not to start your affiliate journey believing that you’re going to get a commission payment out of every single person who passes through your site. Focus instead on nurturing those first few referrals, then once you’ve experienced some success, build on it. Once you’ve got a foundation, it will be much easier to scale up and that’s where the bigger rewards of being an affiliate really start to flow.
Not all brokers or affiliate programs are the same. There will be inevitable similarities, but you need to check ‘under the hood’ to make sure you’re partnering with a business that corresponds best with what you need.
For example, if you’re not confident and feel like you’ll need help getting set up, make sure the broker you choose has good affiliate support. If you’re worried about being tarnished with the old ‘dodgy broker’ tag, check to se that the broker is licensed, regulated and has a positive reputation. If you think the commission structure is a bit murky, choose an affiliate program that offers simplicity and transparency (and don’t forget to read the fine print!)
And just remember that when it comes to any affiliate program, if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. So do your research and pick a trusted partner that’s going to give you what you need to get started on your journey as an affiliate. Because once you’re on your way, the rest of the journey should be easy!
Simply get started with us in 3 steps!
Learn more about becoming an Axi Affiliate at www.axiaffiliates.com, or contact us at service@axi.com.