Congratulations! With your search on how to make money selling other people’s products online, you already are some great steps ahead in sorting this whole make money online thing out! So much internet hype but at the same time so many people failing online – how could one figure out what business model really works?
First things first, with the concept of selling other people’s offers online you are on the safe side: This is not only a very newbie friendly way to make money online, it is also proven in success by thousands of online marketers with awesome, real income results.
In the following I will show you how in detail the process of making money with other people’s stuff works in online business. And you will get some extra tips and alerts that can help to make your start into this business a smooth one.
What’s so fancy about selling other people’s stuff online?
I guess we all fancy things that are much bigger in results than in the effort we have to put into. I don’t say there is not much work to expect by selling products of other people online. But compared to creating and maintaining your own product, it is way more slender in the business process.
Here is just a short list of things you don’t have to take care of, if you choose a smart way of selling other people‘s products online:
- no own product to create and maintain
- no product brand building to handle
- no online shop to handle
- no storage of items to manage
- no shipping to handle
- no customer service to handle
- no technical issues to manage
- no additional staff necessary
All these time and money consuming things above are none of your trouble when selling items of other people. But how does this slim, newbie-friendly business work in detail? How do you come into play between the product owner / supplier and the one buying products, when you are uninvolved in all the tasks above?
The ultimate approach: affiliate marketing
You come into play through affiliate marketing. And actually your part is not selling things, it’s a value added promotion of things, to be more precise. The exchange of money for the (physical) delivery of a product or service happens directly between the supplier and the buyer, without your direct involvement.
Your role in affiliate marketing is to give the buyer valuable guidance along his way to the purchase. You provide helpful information about products or solutions the buyer is searching for. And you refer him to online spots where he can find the best offers for his query.
Need an example? Okay, let’s say you have a blog about running shoes for women. You provide a wealth of information all around the topic of running for women. Maybe you have some great experience with what the best running shoes for women are.
Next step could be writing a review on your 1st choice running shoe for women on your blog. In this review you offer a link to a shop where your visitors can make best deal for the shoe you recommend. If your visitors follow this link to buy the shoe, you’ll get a commission for referring your visitors to that shop.
That link in your review is an affiliate link, which entails your referrer ID. That way, the supplier knows what visitors come from your links, so he can pay you the commission if they buy something.
What’s the potential of affiliate marketing?
Since more and more products and services are bought online, the potential of affiliate marketing is tremendous. People tend to do some research before they buy something online. And very often, they seek for helpful information about a product from a user’s perspective and find that on an affiliate marketers blog.
The massive growth of online shopping offers you the opportunity to start your affiliate business in almost any niche (link to how to find a niche page) you want. Whatever your passion or profession might be, it’s pretty sure that you can build ad decent affiliate incomes around it.
Amazon is a very good example to see the full potential of online shopping: If you join the Amazon Affiliate Program, you can promote over a million products. And Amazon is only one out of thousands of affiliate programs you can join to promote products and earn commissions.
This freedom of choice regarding the topic you want to build your online business in, is a huge advantage of affiliate marketing. And you really should make use of this flexibility.
With a topic that sets you on fire, it’s much easier to overcome struggles in day-by-day business. Cause even if the affiliate business is accompanied with a wealth of advantages – you still have to do some hard work there too, just like in any other business you want to achieve great results!
But affiliate marketing is not only big in the potential of topics you can choose from. If you bring in the work, you can also leverage a huge potential of income streams. The affiliate model can be scaled to a very high extent. It is not a get rich quick scheme, but if you set it up properly, you can really make it a 6-figure plus business in the long run.
Is there a key to success?
I would not call it the only success key, but whether you succeed in affiliate business or not, depends very much on the attitude you drive your business with. Those who are sluggard and just drop their affiliate links here and there, won’t succeed in the long run.
And those who always think about selling and nothing but selling while they do their affiliate business won’t be lucky in this field either.
Successful affiliate marketing is not about selling, it’s about helping. Your main mission should be to help people. It sounds plain, but still, that’s what makes the difference.
With all the content you create, you should always ensure that it’s of great help for your audience. That’s why it’s very important for you to know your audience and all their troubles very well. You should take every opportunity to solve problems of your audience.
And if a topic is not about trouble shooting, try to entertain and capture your visitors with very excellent content you provide.
If you stick to the rule to help with all that you do, the selling part will be the side effect of all your efforts. That’s what I and many other marketers have experienced over and over again, trust me on this one.
Why so many people fail in this business
Even though the affiliate model for doing online business is very attracting, many people fail in doing it. And there are many different reasons for that.
Against its image, affiliate marketing is not a shoot from the hip business. If you want to survive and more importantly succeed in this business, you have to build it on a solid foundation. You have to act very service-oriented towards your audience. And you have to prove you are a very useful source for something, not only in front of your audience but also towards the search engines.
This creation of your authority in your chosen niche takes time and many newbies don’t have enough staying power for that. Persistence and patience are absolutely crucial if you want to make it in this business!
Next to a strong mindset your success is depending on the skills you have to find and apply to your business. You can easily get distracted by the wealth of information you find about affiliate marketing online. Unfortunately, a huge percentage of information is misleading and of no good help.
Learn more about the most common reasons for failure in affiliate marketing here.
Watch out for scams!
No busy place without confidence trickster. And affiliate marketing is a very busy place! Newbies who search for helpful sources to learn the business will come across TONS of shiny offers pretending ultimate help. Unfortunately, scammers are very successful in ripping off internet novices.
Whatever offer it is that sounds too good to be true, stay away from it, cause it’s very likely to steal your money for nothing in return.
Illegal pyramid schemes and MLM networks try to make their fraud programs look like legit affiliate programs. Whenever an affiliate program wants to charge you for joining it, don’t get your hands dirty with it. Legit affiliate programs never charge you to promote their products!
Scams are really a pest in online business and another big reason why so many newbies fail. The sooner you learn to detect and avoid them, the faster you find the good, helpful sources that can really help you make good progress in building your business.
Want to get started but don’t know how?
Although there are a lot of scams around, you should not shy away from the whole industry and the opportunities it can offer to you. Just be careful with offers that are promoted with too many superlatives and manipulative scam lingo.
Whatever resources you might choose to learn affiliate marketing, always make sure you can take a deep look inside the program or product, before you buy anything.
I hope you have found some helpful information about how to make money selling other people’s products online. Are you already into affiliate marketing? Then please share your experiences below in the comments!
If you have any questions, please leave them below in the comments and I am happy to get back to you!
Hi I’m 32 years old and have been interested in this for sometime now and I have no clue how or where to begin if you could help me get started I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks Russell
I wish I had learned to be an affiliate marketer years ago. It is, without a doubt, the easiest money I have ever made.
When I was a kid, I was a door-to-door salesman. My dad got a magazine called “Opportunity.”
Through that magazine, I could order sales kits. When my kit came, I’d spend Saturday going door to door. On a good day, I’d make $20. My biggest seller was a needle threader that the old ladies loved.
I tell that story to make a point. Now, as an affiliate marketer, I don’t have to order anything, I don’t have to walk door to door hoping someone is home, the dog won’t bite me and maybe the people will buy something.
It’s so much easier as an affiliate marketer and a lot more profitable.
I’ve been doing affiliate marketing for almost 2 years now and what I remember most is not so much about getting into the program. The real challenge lies in getting traffic to your site and then get them to convert through your affiliate links.
This is a very steep learning process and many people fall because there’s not a lot of money to make at this stage. To get traffic, you need content and to write good content, you need time and research. A lot of people don’t have the patience for this.
It’s easy to become an affiliate because you don’t need to create the product, but you’ll need to come up with a lot of marketing strategy to make that program work and create a long term income for you.
Having said that, I love doing affiliate marketing and I wish I had started this business earlier in life.
Cathy made a GREAT point. I started affiliated marketing using Clikbank like over 15 years ago and my BIGGEST setback was TIME. My passion for staying the course also got diluted because a lot of folks were using this medium to scam others like SocialToolKit for example who took your money and you NEVER received the product as I was a victim of their fraud right out of College with no job or money.
I am usually hitting myself for joining the trend and not pursuing it and one example I like to use is Google back in 1999 when I was a teenager and Google was a plain white sheet of paper and Folks listed their Businesses’ Name and Addresses with no clickable link, at best only a pop up with the address, and I would walk to their store in Northeast Philadelphia to pickup whatever I wanted and most often it was dog food whenever the 99 cents Store ran out. I followed Google and created my first Pay-per-Click account and then TIME was my BIGGEST setback.
Someone had also mentioned persistence-that too and of course linking to, talking about products that you are PASSIONATE about is key.
DO NOT fall into the trap of wanting to just link to and make QUICK money because you may not. This definitely is NOT for EVERYONE.
Hi Vera,
Beautiful site, like it..love it..bookmarked it! Must admit I love affiliate marketing, all aspects of it!. Total freedom no stock to hold or store or ship when someone buys.
Just get on with the main job HELPING. I personally refer to the job of affiliate marketing as being an online pro guide for other peoples products providing information you won’t find in the suppliers sales letter
Hi Derek,
thanks a lot for your nice feedback, much appreciated:) Sustainable affiliate marketing is really mainly made of helping people, once you know how to do it, you will be rewarded with great success
How would one get started being an affiliate? I feel its my Calling and I could really help others.
Really interesting article! I actually found this while looking into drop-shipping. Although, so far drop shipping seems a bit more involved tha what you call “affiliate marketing.”
Do commissions on promoting other people’s products work out to a full-time income though, or just “a little extra spending money?” I’m hoping to find a full-time solution, or try a few things at once to build up to a full time income.
Hi Jdoo,
thanks for your comment! The advantage of affiliate marketing against drop shipping is that in affiliate business the process behind is leaner, and you have better opportunities to find less competitive niches for good profits. And yes, affiliate incomes can absolutely be scaled to a full time incomeand more!
Nice site Vera. As someone who just recently entered the world of online marketing and creating an online business I found the information on your site to be very accurate and spot on to my own experiences.
It is definitely a learning process, but there are reputable mentors and sites that can provide you with the knowledge and tools needed to be successful in the online marketplace.
It is reassuring to find someone who has gone through similar learning experiences and is willing to pass on the tips, tricks and guidance that others might need so that they too can move forward with passion while pursuing their money making dreams!
Hi Mike,
thanks for your comment, much appreciated! It really is a learning process and I can tell, the best lessons I learned were those caused by my own mistakes. Mistakes might interrupt your flow for a moment, but once you know how to avoid them, you are happy for the improvements you gain from them:)
What a great post!!! I was looking for something that would work for me! I always knew there was a great potential on the internet, but never knew how big this potential was and how to get started! Thanks to your post, I now know the path I need to take to get success!
The best part of it, is actually that you’re helping people and you don’t look at it as just money money money!
P.s. I really like the first picture, with the cheerleaders!!
Love to read some more,
Rian
Hi Rian,
thanks for your feedback, much appreciated:) I am happy you found some good guidance here to start off with your affiliate business. If you have any questions along your way, please drop me a note and I will come back on you. Wishing you great success!
You have explained affiliate marketing very well and I really like that you put down the reasons people tend to fail in it. You are certainly right that this is not a get rich quick scheme and you have to put in the work for it and be persistent. That is always the biggest challenge with affiliate marketing because at the beginning you might be so excited with dreams of making big money and the things you’ll be able to do in life when your are making that money, but at some point those big dreams will fizzle out especially if you don’t start making money by the time you were hoping for.
I’ve been in affiliate marketing for a little over 2 years now and I still haven’t made a penny yet from affiliate marketing. I’ve had a lot happen in those two years from distractions, to losing interest, and other things that happen in life that make you lose focus, but even after all that I still build my business and now more focused than ever with adding content on a regular basis that is beginning to pay off as traffic has been steadily increasing to my website.
Persistence, adding (quality) content, and learning is what it takes to succeed in affiliate marketing and like you said, don’t focus on the money! You help people first, and the money WILL come because they know you are a trusted, knowledgeable source. This is why it’s good to choose a niche you like or are very passionate about as it won’t seem boring to you as you build the foundation up and before you know it, you’ll have a thriving online business! I know mine is on its way up!
Hi Brian,
thank you very much for sharing your experiences, much appreciated! You are a living proof for how one can do differently when times get tough! A business you want to succeed in absolutely needs care and attention on a regular basis and I am very sure that you will meet your goals, since keep moving with a strong mindset.
Keep up the good work and please come back and share your progress!
I will definitely keep you updated on my progress 🙂
Very well written and informative article.
I got into affiliate marketing about 3 months ago. I have not been getting many sales but every day that goes by things look a bit better and I get ever closer to my goal.
It does take a bit of work to set up an affiliate site, but it is well worth it! Anyone who says it is easy is a scammer. So everybody should watch out!
Thanks for your help!
Hannah.
Hi Hanna,
thanks for sharing your experiences here and congrats on the great progress you are making with your business. Sounds like you bring in the proper attitude and patience to grow your business step by step and reward yourself for all the achievements along your way. Keep up the good work!