Affiliate marketing has been the business if choice for most newbies to online marketing and those new to the make money online movement, however having incomplete information has meant alot of newbies are stuck, unable to properly market those products and make the large sums of money they were promised they would.
While affiliate marketing ranks among the top legit online networking business around the globe and you do not need to have much of an experience to start, building on the wrong foundations is costly in terms of both money and time.
This is why we have created this post to enlighten you about the best affiliate marketing platforms in Africa and how to join them, their commissions and which in our opinion and observation is the best.
If you are still having double thoughts about the Affiliate business space, the affiliate model allows you to be your own boss, and still gives you room to do other things you find fun.
What is Affiliate Marketing and how do you start?
Affiliate marketing is simply a business model where an affiliate (marketer) earns a commission for marketing (promoting and recommending) another company’s products. Affiliate marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media etc, generating traffic and leads (people interested in that product) for the chosen product and getting paid for it.
As an affiliate marketer you do not need to worry about selling a product. The affiliate marketer’s duty is primarily to bring customers and leads to the product of their desire thereby helping the affiliated company to make sales. Basically yours directing interested traffic to a product using marketing strategies and earning a commission on it.
Your commission is usually a percentage of the price of the product. Most products have affiliate commissions raving from 5% to as much as 95%.
How can you become an affiliate marketer?
Becoming an affiliate is quite simple, the part that requires work is getting sales through and getting them consistently. The first step is to search for a platform that supports your country’s means of payment, this is important because it’s painful to make sales and not be able to withdraw your money.
Choose a Platform
Choosing the right platform may be a big determinant of your failure or success in affiliate marketing full stop when attempting to choose a platform you should select one that gives you the ability to withdraw your money as well as learn on the job.
Since this post is dedicated to figuring out the right platform for you we will come back to this topic in a minute.
Choose a Niche
A niche refers to an area of specialization. What do you want to sell, how suitable are you with this niche or product you intend to sell? What questions do my audience ask me of? What do the network i have currently prefer?
Choosing a niche makes it easier for you to make choices on the products. When selecting a niche you should focus on evergreen niches such as Money, sex, relationships, business, travel etc. After choosing a suitable niche, you consider the Product
Choose a Product
After successfully choosing your niche you should choose a product which is evergreen.
While there are thousands of products out there you have to consider if these products have a hungry market at the moment, if you are able to successfully deliver these products to the customers and you have to consider the results these products generate for the customers.
Some things you need to know include:
- How much do they need it?
- Does it placate the consumer’s desire?
- Where do you get this product?
- Who are your Competition?
At this point you settle into the affiliate business proper. After choosing a niche, you need to check out AFFILIATE MARKETING PROGRAMS. These programs connect you to affiliate businesses who are in need of your service.
In choosing the affiliate company you get affiliated to, here are some things you need to consider
The Product They Have To Offer
The Brand You Desire To Represent
Your Commission.
The Brand You Desire to Represent
When choosing a company to be affiliated to, you have to also take into cognizance, their brand. The brand refers to the message the company seeks to sell to the public of the company, their carriage and their repute and every other distinguishing factor that separates them from others.
The Affiliate brand would influence the quality and kind of product they sell and it would reduce the strain of marketing on prospective clients.
Commission
This refers to the percentage profit the affiliate marketer makes from the sales or clicks of any of the products. Your commission is based on the arrangement between you and the affiliated company.
Affiliate commissions are based on two premises namely;
- Pay Per Click: This commission system agrees that the affiliate marketer is paid based on the number of clicks he is able to get on the product. Clicks in this sense refers to the number of visitors who visit the affiliated company’s site and click on the affiliate marketer’s product. For each click, he gets his commission.
- Pay Per Sale; This method is the most popular, the percentage commission is paid to the Affiliate marketer based on the sales. For each sale of the affiliate product, you get paid your commission.
How Much Can You Make From Affiliate Marketing?
There is no limit to how much you can make with the affiliate marketing business model. Just as with any other business you ability to sell determines how much you earn. In Affiliate Marketing, this is dependent on your content, that is how you present your product, your marketing channel, you as a personal brand and the brand you represent.
You can make five figures, six figures and even more, it all depends on you. It depends on how you make your goods available to the prospective clients and how well you are able to close prospective clients.
Three Pitfalls to avoid as an affiliate marketer
Like every business, the affiliate marketer has his challenges such as how to get his clients to see the offer and how to close the sale.
As a starter in the Affiliate Marketing Business, it is not wrong if you make one or two mistakes while running the affiliate business, however there are some mistakes that are detrimental yet avoidable. Let’s look at some of them shall we?
Putting up too many products
Its cool to have the income coming in bulk and getting increased gains from different products. For the affiliate marketer, too many products could get you confused.
You might be asking, why shouldn’t I put up too much products for sale?
- It reduces knowledge of products :Your customers and clients deserve to have knowledge about the product you intend to sell to them. Selling more than you can could restrict your knowledge of products to a minimum and you can barely conceal the fact that you do not know a lot about the product you want to sell to your clients.
- Inadequate Content Creations : Having little knowledge about a product, hinders the quality of content you disperse. Despite not having adequate information about your products, it could also reduce the contents created for your products. Too many contents strains you and therefore limits the quality of contents to be promoted and created for your products. The fewer the products the easier the leads.
- Lack of Concentration : Having too many products could get you off balance, the number of ads you have to monitor, leads, prospective clients and impressions of your products and how your customers feel about your products. Having too many products may be too much for you. It pays to stick to one or two niche you are interested in and work towards marketing it.
You will enjoy every single bit of it when you are focused on one or two products to sell. You present yourself more coherently.
Creating The Wrong Content
Creating the wrong content type will absolutely reduce your sales. People love to understand that you are aware and benefiting from what you’re offering them
Your content must be easily understood and pass the message in simple and understanding language.
For instance, Facebook gives you access to different types of ads, such as image ads, Carousel ads, video ads etc. Choosing the right ad type for your product can be tricky, despite that, putting on the right content can be trickier. The same goes for poster ads.
The Right content should have the following quality
Concise,
Creative
Straight to the point
Catchy
Your client is supposed to get the idea behind your poster or ad as soon as he sets eyes on it. He or she is supposed to be gripped to a halt to get the full message of your ad from the very first glance.
Muddling up your ad with so many texts, images and characters would make your ad noisy and indecipherable.
Top 3 Affiliate Marketing platforms
Expartnaire
In Nigeria, Expertnaire reigns as the foremost and popular digital marketplace where creators of digital products get more sales and connect with more customers via the platform and network of high performing affiliates.
On the Expartnaire platform, lots of people connect, buy and sell digital products. These digital products are on constant demand about and around the world.
Accounting for over 100, 000 quality products sold, over 30, 000 affiliate marketers and over 70 product creators, Expertnaire boasts of a marketplace where different variety of goods are sold, building opportunities too for individuals who can create quality products.
Advantages
Effective tracking system that helps the affiliate marketer to keep track of the sales of his or her product ts through.
You are highly honoured as affiliate marketer, your role is clearly defined and all you need do is to make sales.
Compensation is not an issue as they boast of the best compensation system. The affiliate marketer makes 50% commission for the sales of these products.
It is very flexible. The screening system for products on expertnaire is tight and so long as you know what you have to offer, your product is sure to pass the test of time.
Disadvantages
- Digital Products Only: Expartnaire only allows for the sale of digital products. In case your network are lovers of physical products and goods that can be diminish, you may have to think about it for a little second longer.
How to get Started
Check on your browser for the Expertnaire.com, then click on Become an Affiliate Button, Follow the steps involved and you are good to go
Remember on Expertnaire, you are to pay a yearly renewable fee of 10,000 as an affiliate
Learnoflix
Second ranking in the Affiliate world in Nigeria is the Learnoflix Affiliate marketplace. Learnoflix is an affiliate and online networking platform that teaches and also partners with affiliates selling top notch digital products.
Advantages
- As a marketer under Learnoflix affiliate platform, you get the cool opportunity to be trained and prepared for the affiliate business through tutorials and courses.
- It provides for you a market to sell your products.
- As a Learnoflix Marketer, you do not really need to go through the stress of getting influencers and blogs to get prospective clients, LearnOflix, shows you opportunities and markets to sell your products.
Disadvantage
Digital Products Only : On LearnOflix, the products, you choose from a variety of digital products and courses that are on constant demand.
How to register
You have got to Partner with LearnOflix by applying to join the affiliate program.
Watch the marketing tutorials to complete your training.
Choose a hot selling product to promote from the Learnoflix digital store.
Create contents for your product,
Get traffic
Earn 50% commission on each sale.
There are lots and lots of affiliate programs to choose from including,
- Amazon Associates
- Fiver Affiliates
- GiddyUp
- ShareAsale
- And a host of others.
Summary
There are different affiliate programs to pick from, whichever you choose. Your aim of making cool cash is possible.
As it is said, every human endeavour requires dedication. Affiliate Marketing too, would require that you put in dedicated efforts towards marketing your products.
The good thing is, it is easy, it can be done in your leisure and it requires less exertion.
