How to Do Affiliate Marketing in India – A Beginner’s Guide
How to Do Affiliate Marketing in India – A Beginner’s Guide:
Have you ever thought, you could make money by referring people to flipkart or amazon?
Play the video below to see how it’s done!
This way to make money online is called affiliate marketing.
In this post I’m going to walk you through the steps to start affiliate marketing in India.
To keep the video short & simple, we’ve covered just the basics there. All the steps shown in the video will be explained in detail in this article.
Let’s start with the basics:
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is simply:
A way to earn money by recommending products or services to other people.
This is how it works:
- You find a product you want to promote
- You sign up for their affiliate program
- You will get a special link (called as an affiliate link) which allows the company to see who clicked your link.
- You promote your affiliate link on the internet.
- When someone buys the product, you will be paid a commission.
There are hundreds of affiliate programs all over the internet for all types of products. But in India, the most popular affiliate programs are from Amazon and Flipkart.
So in this article we’ll focus on promoting products from these sites.
The best part about Amazon is, once someone has clicked your affiliate link you will earn commissions on any product bought by them in the next 24hrs. This means, you’ll be paid for not just the product you promote but for all products sold on amazon.
For example: Let’s say, A person clicks on your affiliate link at 9 a.m.
But buys nothing!
Again at 8 p.m, he/she goes to amazon directly & buys a product.
You’ll get the commission for the sale.
This is because when someone clicks your affiliate link a ‘cookie’ gets placed in the user’s browser and all purchases he/she makes within the next 24hrs, will be credited to you.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in India
Follow the steps below to promote products from amazon and make sales.
STEP 1: Choose the type of product you want to promote
Visit this page on amazon and select a category which interests you the most.
Since you’ll be writing on this topic later, make sure you choose a topic which you’re familiar with.
The reason you need to choose one specific topic is because, it will make it easier for you to write for a specific audience. This is also called as selecting a ‘niche’.
Also, before you finalize on your topic, go to this page to see the commission rates of products available on Amazon.
To check the flipkart commission rates, click here.
STEP 2: Create a Website
After you’ve selected your topic, it’s time to make your website.
Even though there are other ways to promote your affiliate link, the most effective and future-proof way is with the help of your own website.
Your website will form the foundation of your online business.
If you want to learn how to make a website, watch our 5-min tutorial video below. It’s easy and takes about 10-15 mins to launch your website online.
STEP 3: Sign-up for the Amazon Affiliate Program
Once you’ve created your website, you can sign up for the affiliate program. If you’re thinking about choosing between either flipkart or amazon affiliate program, go for the one which has the higher commissions for the product category you’ve chosen.
If both has the same commission rate, go for amazon. Many affiliate marketers in India have said to have made more money in amazon than flipkart.
During registration amazon will ask you to enter your website address and a few other details.
Even if you haven’t added any content to your site yet, tell them how you plan to promote products on your site and they’ll approve it.
STEP 4: Select the item you’re going to promote
If you already know the product you’re going to promote, then go ahead and search the product name in the search box provided.
If you’re not sure yet, then it’s a good idea to take help from amazon and see which products are selling well.
To do this:
- Go to the amazon bestsellers page.
- Select your category from the left side. You’ll see a list of the top selling products in that category.
- Pick a product which you like (preferably one with a lot of positive reviews).
When you promote a product which is already selling well it is a lot easier to get people to buy it compared to promoting an unknown product.
STEP 5: Write content about the product
Based on the product you’ve chosen, decide on what article you want to write.
There are many different types of content you can write. I’ve listed the most popular types of content for affiliate marketing below:
5 Types of Content you can Write:
- “How to” articles & tutorials: These are the best as they add a lot of value to your readers. They also generate sales very easily if done correctly. For example, “How to get rid of pimples” article with links to products which has worked well for you.
- Review articles: You can write about products you’ve tried personally and help people decide whether to buy the product or not.
- Comparison articles: Compare two or more similar products. Eg. Samsung S6 vs iPhone 6s
- Content Curation: This is where you collect & make a useful list products which are helpful to others.
- Offer or Discount articles where you share the best deals and coupons codes of products related to your topic.
So, these are the types of content you can post to promote your affiliate link.
Always make sure that your visitors get a benefit out of your site.
Affiliate Site Examples Free PDF
How to Add your Affiliate Link
When you’re signed into amazon associates, you’ll see a grey bar at the top of all product pages.
To get your affiliate link for a product, simply click “link to this page”.
Right click in the preview area and copy the link address (this is your affiliate link).
Click the buy button in your article and click edit.
Select link to custom URL & paste the link. Also check “open link in a new tab”.
Click update & publish the article.
Now, when you click the buy button displayed on the page, it’ll take the user to your affiliate link. This allows them to buy the product on amazon.
How to check your earnings?
You can check your earnings on the amazon associate page.
When someone buys something using your affiliate link it will show up on your earning report page.
port page.
Amazon earnings report page
So, this is how you can promote products using your affiliate link.
All of these steps can be used on any ecommerce site of your choice. Eg: Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong, etc.
I hope this post helps you kickstart your own affiliate marketing site.
Once you figure out how to add value to your readers, it will be very easy to attract traffic and get sales.
If you have any doubts or questions, share them in the comments below.
Also leave a comment saying the topic you want to start your website on.
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