Umer Zahid
Are you thinking about dipping your toes into affiliate marketing? If yes, then this article will tell you how you can tap into this billion-dollar industry to make quick money. Here’s how to start affiliate marketing in Pakistan. Get in!
If you’re thinking about doing affiliate marketing, either as a side hustle or on full time basis, you can set yourself up for success by following the steps outlined in the article. But before we get to the main part, you should know what exactly affiliate marketing is and how it works.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a way of earning money by promoting branded products or services. When someone buys a branded product or service through your affiliate link, then you get a commission from the seller. Think of yourself as a remote salesperson for the company that you’re helping make the sale. In return, the company rewards you for the sale that you helped make.
It is just like the typical salesperson job, but better. Here, you’re not only promoting a single company product or service. You’re promoting different companies and earning commissions from all of them.
How does it Work?
The merchant gives the affiliate a unique link which s/he will place on his/her website, blog or social media profile etc. which helps the merchants boost and track the sale. Whenever any person clicks on the link, a small file called a cookie will be stored on their device that helps the merchant attribute the sale to the right person. Suppose a person visits your blog or post to find the best wedding dresses. That person clicks on one of the affiliate links which leads them to the product. If they buy the product through your referred link, then you get a commission from the sale.
Now that you know what affiliate marketing is and how it works, it’s time to venture further into how to start affiliate marketing in Pakistan.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Pakistan
Following are the simple steps to get into the billion-dollar affiliate marketing industry.
- Decide on the platform
- Choose your niche
- Select the affiliate programs
- Create great content
- Drive traffic to your blog, channel or site
- Promote affiliate links
Decide on the Platform
If you’re thinking about starting an affiliate marketing business, then you need to choose a platform where you can promote the affiliate links. As far as popular opinion goes, you can do an affiliate marketing of any platform. But to get more affiliate sales, it is better to start with a blog or a website. It is much easier to build an audience as compared to other platforms. Also, starting a blog or website is easy and much cheaper.
You can use other platforms as well like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. to promote such links. However, building an audience there isn’t easy so, choosing a platform is the step in starting the affiliate marketing business.
Choose Your Niche
Nowadays, starting a blog or a YouTube channel is easy, but you will be facing a ton of competition in the market. With several bloggers and YouTube channels growing around the world, your best chance of success will be through targeting a particular niche.
For example, the topic of “women” is quite vast. Rather than taking such a vast category, choose a sub-category like “latest women fashion” or “beauty products”. When you keep the category narrow yet relatable, it helps you build a more focused audience and allows you to rank better in search engine. But you should not choose a niche that you’re not passionate about. As most of the times, affiliate sites or blogs die due to lack of consistency.
Select the Affiliate Programs
Following, are the different types of affiliate programs:
- High-paying, low-volume affiliate programs
- Low-paying, high-volume affiliate programs
- High-paying, high volume affiliate programs
High-paying, low-volume Affiliate Programs
These programs pay much higher commission but they have quite a low search volumes. You get higher pay-outs for promoting a specific niche product. These programs are quite competitive because a lot of skilled marketers are always eyeing at joining these programs. For example, you will be promoting a specific business software which doesn’t have appeal for a larger audience. As you will be starting out, it’s better to go for the low-paying option.
Low-paying, High-volume Affiliate Programs
These programs have low pay-outs but they have massive appeal. Take the example of video games which a lot of people buy. They will be paying $50 or more for the games. So, if they buy it through your affiliate link, then you will be getting $3 to $4 commission from the sale which isn’t much. However, in these programs, there are tons of products and you will be promoting all of them. So, if you get lucky with the sales, then you will be earning quite a good amount at the start.
High-paying, High-volume Affiliate Programs
These programs have higher commissions and have products with mass appeal. For example, credit cards which are a need of the day and have a long term value for the buyers. So if you’re able to get the sale, then you will be earning quite a handsome amount. But the problem here is similar to the one which we mentioned in the first model. There are a lot of marketers with deep pockets and expertise that you cannot compete with (as a beginner).
Now that you know all about the different models, it’s time to choose the affiliate program that you think is best. A simple search on Google can take you to the site of the program. There are popular affiliate marketing programs like Amazon, Clickbank, ShareAsale etc. that you can join to start your affiliate marketing business.
Create Great Content
Content is the key here because you will be building an audience on your chosen platform and you need to create high-quality content where affiliate links fit naturally. If you’re not consistent in creating content, then your blog or site will die down. So, keep creating content which appeals to the masses.
Drive Traffic to Your Blog, Channel or Site
The next step is to increase the traffic on your blog, YouTube channel or website. To increase traffic, you can use different strategies like paid traffic, guest posts on popular blogs and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The paid traffic is where you have to pay for the ads in order to get more traffic on your blog or site. By using these PPC (pay-per-click) ads, you can generate a lot of traffic.
But the problem here is that as you will be starting out with limited resources and so, running such paid campaigns will be very expensive. Instead, you should focus more on increasing the following organically. SEO is a practice through which you optimize pages to rank higher on search engines like Google or Bing. As long as you rank higher for the targeted keywords, you will be getting passive traffic on your channel or blog.
Once you have built a large audience, you will be able to place those affiliate links on your YouTube video description, in your blogs or websites.
Promote Affiliate Links
The final step is to place those links and get clicks on them. Sometimes even if you’re creating great content, it doesn’t guarantee for people to click on those links. You can promote the links by writing a review about the product, putting a banner ad on your blog or site, in-text content links, email promotions or discounts and giveaways.
These are some of the techniques that you can use to promote the affiliate links and get clicks on them. You need to promote these links in a way that doesn’t look spammy. Also, don’t place the links at the end page, as most people don’t normally like to scroll down to the end of the page.
Don’t expect your affiliate marketing business to grow rapidly, as it will take time for your blog or site to grow. So, be patient and follow the above tips to generate a decent income from affiliate marketing.
Well, there you have it! This article was all about how to start affiliate marketing in Pakistan. If you have any questions, feel free to write it in the comments sections.
