The following ebook was ghostwritten for Daymond John of Shark Tank. At the time, John was a partner of Lurn, a digital education platform focused on entrepreneurship and online marketing.

Secrets of Affiliate Marketing

Are you sick and tired of waking up early every morning, sitting in traffic on your way to work, then staring at a screen all day long in your tiny cubicle?

Exhausted, you slowly make your way home. Maybe you watch a little TV before going to bed. Then you wake up early the next day and do it all over again….

And again, and again, and again…

If you’re fed up with this exhausting, repetitive lifestyle that leaves no time for relaxation or enjoyment, you’re not alone.

One in four people quit their jobs in 2021, according to Visier, a business analytics firm.

Why? Because millions of people started working at home due to COVID, and they discovered that this lifestyle gave them a taste of freedom.

They didn’t need to spend hours commuting every day.

They didn’t need to sit in an office for eight hours a day, five days a week.

They didn’t need to be constantly monitored by micromanaging bosses.

Instead, people spent more quality time with their families. They learned new skills and knowledge. They even started their own businesses! In fact…

32% of Americans quit their jobs to become entrepreneurs.

People want to be their own boss. They want to pursue an idea they are passionate about. They want to build wealth.

Does this sound like you?

If the answer is yes, here’s some great news—it’s never been easier to start your own online business and become an entrepreneur.

One of the most popular online business models is affiliate marketing. It’s popular because you don’t need to create any products. You don’t need to deal with customers. And you don’t need to spend a lot of money.

All you need is a computer and some knowledge about how affiliate marketing works. And that knowledge is what this report is going to provide you with.

Let’s get started!

The 3 Things You’ll Need

Affiliate marketing is a pretty simple business model. You really only need 3 things to succeed.

A Product. There are thousands of products available to promote. In this report, you’ll learn how to choose a product that’s right for you.
An Audience. You can’t sell a product if you don’t have an audience to sell it to. I’ll show you how you can attract an audience later in this report.
Credibility. You have to show that you have some knowledge about your audience, the problems they’re facing, and how you can help them solve those problems.

Before we take a closer look at each of these three things, let’s quickly go over how the affiliate marketing business model works.

A Business With No Product?

One of the most appealing things about affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to create or own a product in order to make money.

That’s why affiliate marketing is often called “a business with no product.”

Now, that’s not entirely accurate. There is a product. But it belongs to someone else.

Here’s how it works. First, somebody creates a product. Then, in an effort to generate more sales, that person sets up an affiliate program.

This program is open to people like yourself who want to make money promoting other people’s products.

Let’s say you sign up for this affiliate program and are accepted into it.

When you are accepted into an affiliate program you are given a tracking link that only you can use. This affiliate link is a simple piece of computer code.

How do you use this link? You put it into a blog post you’ve written, or in an email you’re sending out to people, or in the description of a YouTube video that you created.

You can put it anywhere, really, where people are likely to see it and click on it.

When someone clicks on your link, they are taken to the product’s homepage. If they buy the product then you, the affiliate, receives a commission. That’s all there is to it.

How much of a commission will you receive? It varies widely from product to product. The commission is usually a percentage of the sales price.

For example, if the product you are promoting sells for $100 and the commission rate for that particular product pays you 40% for each sale, that means you’ll get $40 every time someone buys the product through your affiliate link.

Just making two sales a day with this product means you’d earn $2,400 a month!

Many affiliate programs offer more than a 40% commission. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see commission rates as high as 75%, or sometimes even more.

OK, now that we’ve seen how affiliate marketing works, let’s talk about how you can find a good product to promote.

First, Choose A Niche

Before deciding upon a product to promote, you first need to choose a niche.

The niche you choose becomes the foundation of your whole business. Choosing the right niche can mean the difference between success and failure.

What’s a niche?

A niche is a segment of the market that revolves around a particular topic. For example, weight loss is a niche. So is personal finance. And meditation.

There are hundreds of niches. The reason you need to focus on one niche is because it will allow your message to be much more effective.

If you try to be all things to all people you won’t be anything to anybody.

A lot of advice about choosing a niche begins by asking, “What are you passionate about, or at least interested in?”

However, this is NOT the best way to choose a niche.

Of course, being passionate and interested in the niche you choose is certainly ideal, but there’s an even more important question that should be asked first. That question is: Is the niche profitable?

What does it mean for a niche to be profitable?

Remember, this is affiliate marketing. The entire business model revolves around having lots of affiliate offers to promote.

You can’t succeed by promoting just one or two products.

If there are not enough affiliate products within your niche it doesn’t matter how passionate you feel about the niche—you won’t make any money.

Most profitable niches can be found in one of these three categories:

Health
Wealth
Relationships

When people have problems with their health, or their finances, or their relationships, they are usually willing to spend money for fast solutions.

Now, these three categories are way too big to be considered niches. You can’t just promote “health” products. That’s too broad. You need to narrow it down.

For example, you could promote products associated with weight loss, which is a niche within the health category.

In fact, weight loss is one of the most popular and profitable niches in affiliate marketing (it’s also highly competitive).

Once you choose your niche, then you’re ready to start looking for specific affiliate products to promote.

But before we do that, let’s go over the four basic types of affiliate products.

1. Physical Products

Physical products need to be manufactured, stored, and shipped to customers. These are products you can actually hold in your hands.

Physical products include things like:

Clothes
Electronics
Books
Kitchen tools
Exercise equipment
Beauty products
Pet supplies
Toys

There are lots of physical products you can promote as an affiliate. BUT there’s one big drawback to promoting this type of product.

The commission rates for most physical products are low.

Yes, there are some physical products with high commission rates, but these are the exception, not the rule.

Why are commission rates so low for physical products?

Because it costs the product owner a lot of money to manufacture, store, and ship physical products. There isn’t enough money left over to offer the affiliate a high commission rate.

If you’re just starting your affiliate marketing business, you should only focus on promoting products with high commission rates.

Otherwise you’ll get discouraged when you finally make some sales but don’t generate much revenue.

Fortunately, there’s another type of affiliate product that often has high commission rates, which makes it perfect for beginners.

2. Digital Products

In many ways, a digital product is the opposite of a physical product.

You can’t hold a digital product in your hand (unless you print it out or put it on a disk). It’s not manufactured in a factory, and you don’t need to mail it to people.

To access digital products, you download them with a computer or smartphone. Examples of digital products include:

Reports and ebooks
Online courses
Computer software
Videos
Membership sites
Coaching programs

There are some tremendous benefits to promoting digital products as an affiliate.

For one thing, the world is increasingly digital, so consumers are more and more comfortable buying digital products online.

Consumers also like digital products because they can receive them immediately. You just download them on your computer.

But for affiliates, the really good news about digital products is:

The commission rates are usually very high!

Why are the commission rates so high for digital products?

Because the product owner only has to create the product once. Then it’s simply a matter of making digital copies, which doesn’t cost anything.

But there’s another type of affiliate marketing product that gives affiliates a commission even if a sale is not involved.

3. CPA Products

CPA stands for “Cost Per Action”. This means that affiliates get paid if a certain action is taken by the customer. Actions can include:

Submitting an email address or phone number
Filling out a form or taking a survey
Signing up for a free trial or appointment
Installing a free software app
Getting a quote for a service
Taking a quiz

Why would a product owner pay money to an affiliate for an action that doesn’t involve a sale?

Because these actions provide leads. A lead is personal information (email address, phone number, etc…) that a product owner can later use to help develop paying customers.

First, the product owner figures out what a lead is worth to them. They run the numbers and come up with a precise dollar amount. Then they pay their affiliate less than that amount.

There are lots of profitable CPA offers out there, so ignoring them is a big mistake.

Now, if you’re interested in really big profits, pay attention to the next type of affiliate product that we’re going to look at.

4. High-Ticket Products

A high-ticket product is expensive. At least $300, but often it’s a lot more than that, depending on the niche. These products can include:

Comprehensive courses
Expert reports
Workshops
Retreats
Coaching and consulting
Mastermind groups
Software

Even with high-ticket products, it’s important to find offers that have high commission rates.

If you can successfully promote a $1000 product with a 50% commission rate, then you are making $500 per sale.

Obviously, the #1 benefit to promoting high-ticket offers like this is that you can make a lot of money.

BUT… your audience really needs to trust you before they’re going to spend a lot of money on a high-ticket product that you recommend.

Frankly, promoting high-ticket offers isn’t really the best strategy for people just starting out with affiliate marketing.

Nevertheless, as you become more experienced it’s definitely worth thinking about making the effort to promote high-ticket offers.

After all, with this type of product you only have to make a few sales a month to generate a very nice income.

Where To Find Affiliate Offers

So how exactly do you find good affiliate products to promote? The easiest way is to join an affiliate network.

These are digital marketplaces where product owners list their products, hoping to find affiliates willing to promote them.

In order to enter an affiliate marketplace, you first have to apply and be accepted into it.

Some affiliate marketplaces accept just about anyone and are great for beginners. Others are more difficult to get into.

Once you’re inside a marketplace, browse around and try to find a good offer. The offers are usually categorized by niche.

When you find an attractive offer, sign up for it. That’s when you’ll receive your affiliate link.

A good example of an affiliate marketplace that accepts just about anyone is Clickbank. Other affiliate marketplaces that are good for beginners include:

Digistore24
Sellhealth
Fanfuel
Flexoffers
JVZoo
MarketHealth

Other affiliate networks prefer that you have some experience. They usually require a website that gets traffic, or a substantial social media following. These networks include:

CJ Affiliates
Shareasale
Impact
Awin
Rakuten Marketing

Sometimes, product owners don’t list their products on affiliate marketplaces. Instead they run their own, in-house affiliate programs.

How can you find these offers? Ask Google!

To find affiliate programs on Google, type into the search bar [your niche keyword] + “affiliate programs”.

The results will show you lots of different products you can promote in your niche. Some of these products will be listed on marketplaces, others have private, in-house programs.

Another great way to find products is to just look around you. What do you use in your daily life? What do you like to buy? What are your favorite products?

Again, you can just use Google to find out if a product has an affiliate program. Type in [product name] + “affiliate program”.

You can also go to the product’s homepage and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. If the product has an affiliate program, you should be able to find a link to it here.

Four Ways To Build An Audience

So far, affiliate marketing seems pretty easy, doesn’t it?

You choose a niche, find a product to promote, and get your affiliate link.

But now comes the more challenging part—attracting and building an audience.

After all, who is going to click on your affiliate link and buy the product you’re promoting? You need traffic.

There are four primary methods of building an audience in affiliate marketing. They are:

Email marketing
SEO Blogging
YouTube Videos
Social Media

Which promotion method you choose will depend on your skills, experience, and personality.

For example, some people love making videos. Other people have no desire to make videos, but maybe they like writing, so blogging is a better choice for them.

You don’t have to choose just one method of promotion. In fact, you should always be building an email list, whether you’re blogging, making videos, or doing social media.

The bottom line is that you might have the greatest product in the world, but you won’t sell it without an audience to promote to.

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the #1 promotional method to make money as an affiliate. Here’s how it works:

You get people to sign up for your email list. Ideally you want to acquire thousands of email addresses.
You regularly send emails to the people on your list. These emails need to offer enough value so your audience will stay engaged with you.
Some of your emails will contain an affiliate link. If your reader clicks on the link and buys the product you make money.

OK, so how do you build up a list of subscribers that you can send emails to?

First, you need to create a free gift. The most common type of free gift is a digital report or ebook (related to your niche, of course).

Then you offer that free gift to people in exchange for their email address.

It’s a very natural transaction. If someone wants your free gift, you need to get their email address in order to send it to them.

When a person enters their email address to get the gift, it’s called opting-in.

But after someone opts-in, how exactly do they get their free gift? And where does their email address go?

This is all done with a tool called an autoresponder. The autoresponder is a computer program where all the technical stuff happens in email marketing.

You can’t do email marketing without an autoresponder. This is a monthly expense you just can’t avoid.

Your autoresponder collects all the email addresses it receives from your opt-in page. And it automatically sends out the free gift when someone provides their email address.

But how are people going to find your opt-in page in the first place?

One way is with paid traffic. You can do this with Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, and other advertising platforms.

You can also do it with free, or organic traffic. For example, if you had a blog that was getting traffic, you could offer your free gift to visitors. You can also drive traffic with a YouTube channel, or with social media.

As you grow your list of subscribers, you need to send emails to them on a regular basis. These emails need to engage your audience, or they’ll unsubscribe.

The best way to engage your audience is to provide them with value. For example, if you help your audience solve a problem they might be facing, that’s great value.

You want to make sure that some of your emails promote affiliate products. These emails will include an affiliate link. This is how you’ll make money.

The key to successful email marketing is to offer enough value in your emails so your subscribers will stay engaged. Then they won’t mind that you’re promoting offers to them.

In fact, the more value you provide your audience with, the more they’ll listen to you, like you, trust you, and buy from you!

2. SEO Website

Perhaps the most common way to make money with affiliate marketing is with a website. In fact, nearly 65% of affiliate marketers get traffic by posting articles on their website.

Here’s how it works:

First, you write an article, such as a review, about the product you’re promoting. Then you put your affiliate link within your article.

Hopefully your article will make people curious about the product. To learn more, they’ll click on the affiliate link to go to the product’s homepage.

This is where your reader can purchase the product. If they decide to buy, you get a commission!.

The key to success with this method is to get the review to rank well in Google’s search results for keywords that get a lot of traffic and are highly relevant to your product.

This is where SEO comes in.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is optimizing your website to rank well in Google (yes, there are other search engines besides Google, but 92% of all searches happen there).

What does Google look for in a website?

Above all else, Google wants a visitor to your site to have a positive user experience.

Your visitor is the user. A positive experience means that your visitor found what they were looking for when they visited your site.

Google ranks websites with poor user experience lower than websites that provide the visitor with lots of solid, useful information about the topic they were searching for.

Another important factor in how well a website ranks is backlinks.

When another site links to your website, it’s called a backlink. Backlinks are like a vote of confidence in your site.

If your website has lots of backlinks from quality, high-ranking websites in your niche, your site will definitely rise in the search results!

You get backlinks by promoting your website and making it as visible as possible. There are other techniques as well.

One of the biggest pros to using a website to promote products is that you can get tons of traffic if your site is ranking well in Google’s search results.

People use Google all the time, resulting in billions of daily searches.

Another pro is that when people search for more information about a particular product, it means they’ve already heard about that product. This is a warm audience.

Finally, people trust Google. If your site is ranking well in Google, people are more likely to trust your site.

The biggest disadvantage to using a website for affiliate marketing is that blog posts can take a very long time to rank in Google.

Google doesn’t trust new websites. It can take 6 months to a year to start ranking highly in Google, depending on the competitiveness of the keyword.

Also, as we already mentioned, Google gets 92% of all searches. This means that the success or failure of your website relies upon Google alone. This can be a problem.

When Google changes their algorithm, as they often do, your website can be negatively affected.

One day your website might be getting lots of traffic, then suddenly you’ll drop in the rankings for some reason. Then 6 months later you might rise again. It can be very frustrating.

That’s why it’s never a good idea to rely solely on an SEO website for all your revenue.

Does this mean you shouldn’t build a website? No! You absolutely should build one.

A website provides you with authority and credibility. But more importantly, it can become a valuable asset over time.

As long as you post good content on a regular basis, you should slowly get more and more traffic. But you have to be both consistent and patient.

3. YouTube Videos

YouTube is the #1 social media platform for building an audience.

Why? Because it’s so incredibly popular. More than 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched every day.

In fact, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine next to Google.

When it comes to getting free traffic, YouTube is vastly superior to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Part of the reason for this is because people love video. Nearly 70% of consumers say they prefer to learn about things by watching videos.

Plus, YouTube videos often stay up for years, allowing people to keep watching them. On other social media platforms, content disappears pretty quickly and is hard to find.

Now, the biggest problem with creating a YouTube channel is actually making the videos.

A lot of people feel uncomfortable with the idea of making YouTube videos. They don’t believe they have the technical skills to do it. And they certainly don’t want to get in front of a camera.

The good news is that it has never been easier to make videos.

With today’s technology, you can make a high-quality video with nothing but your smartphone!

As far as getting in front of the camera, it’s not as hard as you think. You just need to be you.

People love authenticity. As long as you engage people and offer some value, they’ll pay attention.

You don’t need fancy studios or equipment. You can make what is called face-to-camera videos. This is simply you talking into a camera.

You don’t even have to get in front of the camera. You can do screen share videos.

This is when you record your screen as you’re doing a presentation or demo. (This works better in some niches than others).

There are two keys to creating a successful YouTube channel:

1) Good Sound And Image Quality. Your video doesn’t have to be super professional, but it should sound and look pretty good. Sound is especially important. You might want to invest in a decent microphone.

2) Be Consistent. In order to build an audience, it’s a good idea to consistently add content to your YouTube channel. Try to put out at least one video per week.

It usually takes at least 20 videos before YouTube starts paying attention to your channel. Why? Because that amount of videos signals to the YouTube algorithm that you’re committed.

Also, the more videos you have, the more YouTube prioritizes your videos.

Another great thing about YouTube is that you can add your affiliate links directly to the description beneath the video.

Or you can add a link to an opt-in page (where you’re offering your free gift) in order to collect email addresses.

When you start making videos, don’t expect quick results. It takes time to build momentum and you really need to be consistent about creating videos.

But if you’re patient you can eventually get a lot of great traffic from YouTube.

4. Social Media

The best thing about social media is that it’s easy to get started. Just set up some accounts and start posting. You can get followers in a matter of hours!

Where should you set up accounts? For affiliate marketers, the best platforms are:

Instagram
Facebook Groups
Tik Tok
Pinterest

Of course, social media is always changing, so this list is not set in stone.

The idea of promoting on social media appeals to a lot of people. After all, a lot of us spend time on social media for fun. So promoting a business on social media seems like a cool, exciting thing to do.

Social media is not only easy to get started with, but there’s a built-in audience. You can start to reach out to people right after you set up your profile.

People spend a lot of time on social media. They check it multiple times a day. This means you can engage with people on a daily basis, which is great for building a relationship.

You can also post a variety of content on social media, including text, photos, videos, gifs, memes, infographics, and more. This makes your content dynamic and digestible for people.

The biggest drawback to using social media is that you don’t have any control over the platform you use.

Social media platforms constantly change their ranking algorithms. These algorithms might favor you one day and ignore you the next.

Social media platforms also change their rules a lot, often without notice. You need to stay on top of these changes. Otherwise, you risk losing your audience.

The bottom line is, you don’t own your social media account and audience. The platform owns it.

Another big problem is that social media companies aren’t crazy about affiliate marketers. Some platforms are more accepting than others.

So how do you make money using social media? You use it to build your email list.

In other words, use social media to lead people to your website or an opt-in page where they can subscribe to your list. Then you promote offers directly to your list.

Remember, the most effective way to grow your business is to build an email list. Social media can definitely help you do that.

This is why, as an affiliate marketer, you should at least have a social media presence, even if you don’t plan to devote lots of time and effort to it.

How To Become Credible

In the beginning of this report, I said that you needed 3 things to succeed in affiliate marketing—a product, an audience, and credibility.

We’ve covered the first two. Now it’s time to talk about credibility and what that means.

If you look in the dictionary, credibility is defined as “the quality of being trusted and believed in.”

The #1 way to gain credibility with your audience is to provide strong content.

If your content is entertaining, honest, and interesting it will engage your audience. This is how you build a relationship with your audience and get them to believe in and trust you.

Here are 3 ways to make your content as engaging as possible.

1.Be Authentic

Authenticity in affiliate marketing is more important than ever before. Audiences have become smarter. They can immediately sense if someone is just trying to make money off them.

Be yourself. If you’re open and honest with people they’ll respond to that. Don’t be afraid to show vulnerability. This makes you more relatable.

Ultimately, you must convince your audience that you understand and care about their wants and needs. Then you must provide them with information that will help them.

2. Be Action-Oriented

People don’t just want information, they want to know HOW to put this information into action.

How can your audience actually use what you’re telling them to make a difference in their lives?

If you can help people take action that will improve their lives, they will pay attention to you. This is one of the best ways to turn a cold audience into a hot one.

3. Be Consistent

Providing consistent content is a great way to build credibility.

The world is full of chaos, noise, and distraction, so audiences are naturally drawn to someone who speaks to them in a predictable, consistent way.

Try to provide new content on a regular basis. If you do, people will start to look for it. This really helps build a relationship with an audience.

As you produce your content, try to be authentic, consistent, and provide action-oriented information.

If you can successfully do these things, your audience will listen to you, trust you, and ultimately buy from you.

To Sum Up…

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to start an online business. That’s because you don’t need to create a product to start making money.

Instead, you promote other people’s products.

The first step is to choose a niche to work in. This will help you narrow your focus and create a more effective, targeted message.

You should try to promote products that have high commission rates. Digital products tend to have higher commission rates than physical products.

There are lots of ways to promote products. You can write blog posts, create YouTube videos, and promote on social media. But the #1 way to promote affiliate products is with email marketing.

You should email your list regularly. Your emails should provide value. This is useful, interesting information that will help your audience improve their lives in some way.

Some of your emails should promote affiliate products. If you’ve built up a good relationship with your audience, and they trust you, they will buy the products you recommend. This is how you make money.

Hopefully, you can see now why affiliate marketing is a great business model. It’s inexpensive, easy to learn, and has the potential to be very profitable.

Plus, the affiliate marketing industry is rapidly growing. Every year, consumers are spending more and more money online, and that’s only going to continue.

This report is only the first step in your affiliate marketing journey. Every day, try to do something to help you move forward on that journey. This will give you the best chance to achieve the kind of success you’ve always dreamed of.