Pros And Cons Of Affiliate Marketing: The Good And The Bad
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Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular business models today for earning money online. Many love it because of the low costs for starting against the noticeable profits possible.
However, it has pros and cons, just like everything. If you’re thinking about starting out in this business, then make sure you know both the good and the bad things about it.
We’ll discuss both below, so you’ll be able to know whether or not it is what you’re looking for.
The good things
Small investment
You don’t need to spend a lot of money if you want to start with this business model. Depending on the channel you choose for promoting your products, you can even do it entirely for free.
Getting a domain and hosting will net you just around $100 for starting if you want to do it with your own website. It’s much cheaper than most other options around, and it’s still entirely optional.
You’ll also skip having to pay salaries, utilities, rent, etc. You’ll just use your computer, the internet, and whatever you choose to spend on your website or training.
Basic setting up
Regardless of what marketing strategy you choose and what you’re going to promote, the basic set up for affiliate marketing is just finding a product, grabbing your affiliate link, and paste it on your website, blog, videos, etc. for your audience to see.
Anything other than that is up to you, and you can make things as simple or as complex as you prefer.
Doesn’t require much experience
You don’t have to know everything about the model, and there’s actually little to learn specifically related to affiliate marketing. You can start with zero experience if you desire.
What you do need to learn depends on what you choose. As already mentioned, you can decide how you want to promote your products, so choose what you feel comfortable with. As long as you’re familiar with what you sell and the strategy you choose, you can consider yourself an expert in affiliate marketing.
You can make it as simple as just creating a blog and writing about the niche you chose, placing affiliate links along the lines for your readers to click. You only need to provide enough value and a good product.
Passive
The best part about affiliate marketing is that you can just put out your content and links; you can then just go to bed or do anything and check how your links generate your income. It’s certainly a surprise the first time, and a lot of people will be amazed.
You just need to be disciplined in maintaining your website, YouTube channel, blog, or whatever you choose. You can take a couple of hours each day to prepare your content and then take the rest of the week for yourself.
Your only responsibility is to keep your website relevant and check if your promotions are still relevant.
Versatile
You have zero limits on the products you can promote and the ways you can do it. You can head over to Amazon Associates for some physical products, or Clickbank for more digital promotions.
In fact, you can just head over to Google and look up the niche or product that interests you by adding “affiliate program” in the end.
If you don’t have a clear idea on what you want, then there are many affiliate marketing platforms that you can use to look up different products that might catch your eye.
No product creation
Sure, creating a product lets you keep all the profits made from selling it, but that also means paying for production costs and spending time on it. Affiliate marketing lets you sell products that have already been produced and tested by someone else.
You only keep a part of the price, but you can focus your entire time on selling more and working on your marketing strategies while others handle the rest. You don’t have to worry about shipping, packaging, or anything else.
Scaling
Once you get your first sales, you can build up on the strategies that worked for you and focus on what gets you more orders. You can quickly grow your income by optimizing your methods, and you can even find related products and promote them as well for an extra.
The bad things
Lack of total control
You don’t really own the product, and your affiliate can cancel the contract. The commissions may change as well, or the business may simply fail and close. Luckily, that’s more of a hassle because you can simply look for another product you can promote. The only loss is the time you’ll spend rearranging your website according to the new offer.
Delayed payments
Some affiliates offer weekly payments, but others will have you wait for a month or longer until you receive your money. The problem comes from those 30-day-money-back offers, which mean they have to wait that time before paying you.
Lots of dedication required
I’m just listing this because some lack the discipline and dedication. Affiliate marketing is simple, but you have to do your research, study, and improve your methods so that you can make the most out of this model.
Conclusion
Not only do the pros outweigh the cons, but the latter are also highly subjective. They’re more of an annoyance than an actual problem, but they can be off-putting for some people, so make sure you consider everything before making a choice.
If you are new to affiliate marketing I recommend you check out this guide on How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing Through Blogging.
Also, if your brand new I highly recommend you try out a course which helps you not only save time but also money. I did a top affiliate marketing courses article where I share the best affiliate marketing courses that are in the market right now! (Don’t forget to check it out!)
