There are lots of ways to make money online these days. I even have a whole category full of ’em right here. But no matter which one I try out, the best one is undoubtedly affiliate marketing.
For those who don’t know, affiliate marketing (AM) is basically promoting other people/company’s products in exchange for a percentage of the profits. You can read more about that in this introduction.
Recently, affiliate marketing has boomed in popularity, mostly because of interest in working from home (university isn’t what it used to be, folks), and partly because so many scams hype it up.
Whatever the cause is, this is an awesome way to make money online, and here are 10 (pretty convincingly) good reasons why you should start affiliate marketing!
Work from Home
This is kind of an innate bonus, since mostly all online businesses are work from home jobs. Still, it counts. In this business, you don’t need to rent a floor or building or whatever. When you’re affiliate marketing, all you need is your computer.
That means no office space, or leasing costs (aside from your regular rent). It also means you’re your own boss. You decide your hours. for better or worse. You don’t even have to commute. Complete freedom!
Of course, you may soon find out you may be a strict boss yourself…
No Inventory Needed
I used to run a moderately successful eBay store, and while it made some good money, I always hated the inventory aspect.
See, I had to keep things lying around, taking up a lot of space. That’s one of the limitations of an eCommerce store. Unless you have a pretty big house, your stock is limited.
With AM, you don’t need to have boxes lying around the house. You can sell as much as you want without worrying about storing boxes somewhere. Size doesn’t matter either. You can sell fridges and airplanes if you so choose!
No Shipping Costs
This is a big one. When I was running my eBay store, I had to regularly buy supplies like boxes, labels, envelopes, bubble wrap… it was a ginormous headache. That wasn’t the end of it though! 
I still had to worry about shipping rates, both local and international. As a Canadian this was especially costly, since rates are high here.
But if you’re an affiliate marketer, you don’t need to ship. You’re not the one selling the product! All you do is promote it. The shipping responsibility is on the seller. It’s a huge relief!
No Customer Service Needed
Hear me out on this one. Affiliate marketing does involve some customer service, but it’s entirely optional and usually just involves questions about the product or how to contact the seller.
What you don’t have to do is deal with angry buyers, lost packages, wrong orders, and all that jazz. That customer who wants a refund? Not your problem. This is especially useful if you just can’t handle these types of interactions.
Low Expenses
To promote a product, you just join a marketplace like ClickBank or a an affiliate program like Amazons’ and start promoting. That’s it.
It’s totally free to get permission to promote stuff. After that you just need to set up your site, which you can do for free. Sure, along the road you’ll need to pay hosting, but the start-up cost is zero.
Yeah, some scams make you pay to be able to promote their products. These are MLM schemes, and you don’t have to worry about them.
Passive Income
Make no mistake, everyone wants passive income. I’ll tell you right now that if you’re serious about being financially free, you need it.
This is why so many people are interested in affiliate marketing these days. They know that AM is a legit way of making money without actively working. And in some ways, that’s true. You can earn money “while you sleep” as an affiliate marketer. But that’s not the full story!
Let’s face it: we’ve all tried to earn passive income before. It’s why scams are so popular. They always promise you’ll be making money without work.
The truth is, there’s no such thing as true passive income. You have to put in a lot of effort to begin. When you start AM, there’s a ton of work involved, from keyword research to writing to promoting.
Building and growing a website is not easy. But if you can weather the storm, you’ll be working less and less as your income grows!
Minimal Risk
This sorta builds on some previous points in the list. Basically, compared to a regular brick-mortar business (or even eCommerce), AM is extremely cheap. The maximum you’ll be spending is around $50 a month for the best hosting (if you decide not to keep a free site).
So, if for some reason you decide to quit, you won’t be writing off a very large amount of money. Let’s assume it’d take you 6 months (that’s a very generous estimate) to decide to continue or not.
If you kept your free website, you wouldn’t lose anything. Even if you paid (which is unlikely if you’re hesitant), you’re only looking at about $300. Now that’s not exactly pocket change, but compared to the thousands you would lose trying out other businesses it’s quite reasonable.
Worldwide Reach
Affiliate marketing is an Internet business for the most part. Your audience is global. You’re not selling to Houston basketball fans, or American basketball fans. You’re selling to all fans around the world. Your reach is unlimited… ball is truly life.
Distribution fees and export rates are a thorn in your side. Leave the products to the seller and promote them instead.
High/Nonexistent Revenue Ceiling
Apple sells a lot of phones. You probably know that. At the end of 2014, it sold about 75 million iPhones. That’s a huge number. But the next year it reported the first ever year-over-year decline in sales.
There’s a reason for that. The smartphone market is saturated. Pretty much everyone has one by now. Affiliate marketers don’t have to worry about limits. There are always gonna be products to promote to people.
And, they don’t have to worry about caps either. They earn as much they work for, not what their salary decrees.
Some marketers earn thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, and are still growing. Affiliate marketing is limitless.
Endless Variety
If you’ve shopped on Amazon before, you would know how much range they have. You can find almost anything! That goes for the rest of the internet as well. People are selling everything.
That’s good news for us marketers! Snow globes, cat food, stamps… just some of what we can promote. There’s also barbecues, boxing gloves, broaches, and any other noun you can think of!
Marketplaces like ClickBank and Commission Junction cover thousands of digital and physical products, and with Amazon most of your niche needs are covered. Plus, many companies have individual affiliate programs. Everything is covered!
Convinced Yet?
Affiliate marketing is a huge industry that’s filled with lots of benefits. Just look at this list!
You probably noticed I complained about my eBay store quite a bit. Once I got introduced to AM, I found almost all of complaints were solved. Yeah, it takes quite some time at first, but it pays off in the end.
In my humble opinion, AM is just the best way to earn an income online. It could be pocket change income, but then it turns into a side job, then your real job. All it takes is hard work and determination (and a little help).
Did all these reasons help you decide to start affiliate marketing? I hope so! If you have any questions, leave a comment below!
And if you liked the article, feel free to share it! Pretty please?
Your amigo in affiliates,
-Makki
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Sweet article!! Thank you for laying things out in an easy to understand context. I’ve often thought about selling stuff on eBay, but then I thought of how much of a pain it would be to go get the boxes and then go back to ups/fedex and ship it out. No thank you. I’ll do affiliate marketing-it sure seems to be the way to go!
Good luck to you, by the way!!
~Midge
As someone who’s been there and done that, I can tell you it is no picnic. Shipping is hugely problematic, and all product defects are your responsibility. Affiliate marketing is also no walk in the park, but at least you can leave the bubble wrap and stamps behind. Thanks for reading, Midge!
This is a great post with great information. Thank you for reminding me why Affiliate Marketing is absolutely the way to go! I also thought about selling on Ebay, but enough said…it is not for me.
No problem Rachel! I can tell why you wouldn’t to try out eBay, lol. Not that it’s too much work, but it’s too nuanced. Thanks for reading!
When you read through these reasons, this should convince anyone to join up and be a part of affiliate marketing.
Very exciting post!
Thanks
That’s the idea! Thanks for commenting Lawrence!
If this article won’t convince people to start affiliate marketing, then I don´t know what will. Very good reasons you got here and I believe running a eBay shop must have been tough. Great post!
Hopefully they’re convincing enough. Yeah, if you’re already affiliate marketing I wouldn’t suggest eCommerce. It’d be hard to abandon all these perks! Thanks for sharing, Lukas!
Apparently online sales have become a significant part of overall retail sales for an increasing number of products and this has been increasing year on year.
I am aware of a local high street retailer in my City who had been trading for the guts of 100 years, who closed down and laid the blame squarely on online competition.
Here’s the thing – people are buying online – in increasing numbers and anyone can get a piece of the action through Affiliate Marketing.
That’s exactly right! Online retail is huge now, and affiliate marketers can take advantage of that without having to actually sell products. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent online each year, and AM lets you profit without any product. Thanks Eoin!
Makki,
Great article I love the way you clearly laid out the pros and cons. Affiliate marketing is an amazing way to conduct an online business and get out of the rat race of working for someone else. It allows people to actually live their lives and work from wherever they please, whenever they please. Thanks for sharing this with us. I’m sold!
Cary
Very true. No matter what kind of business one chooses to start, the allure of getting out of the rat race is the best motivation. Affiliate marketing offers an opportunity for anyone, even complete rookies. That’s why I prefer it. Thanks for reading Cary!
Makki-
Great information you provide here. I hope so many people read this (and actually take action). These are all great points that you lay out. The opportunity for getting involved in affiliate marketing are endless.
You mentioned that there is a minimal risk to start…. So once you start and you get your website up and running, how long (on average) does it take to make some money?
Thank you for sharing this valuable information!
Taking action is the hardest thing to do, but once you actually start… it’s all downhill from there. Starting means you overcome all that doubt. It takes effort, but it pays off.
That’s a great question Udoh. The best answer is, well, there is no answer. There are just too many variables. Some can make money in their first week, others after a year. It all depends on how hard you work, how much content you create, and so much other factors. It’s frustrating, but ambiguity is something every business has to deal with.
This is a nice, broad and specific overview of the advantages of being an affiliate marketer. There’s a lot about affiliate marketing that I don’t consider often: too glad I don’t have to handle inventory and shipping, which is expensive and time consuming as is. Thanks for this breakdown!
There are some stressful moments where I’m just relieved I don’t have to worry about boxes and bubble wrap anymore. Of course, affiliate marketing has its own share of big troubles, but I find I can handle those better than eCommerce problems. Thanks for your feedback Dawn!
There 2 ways to make money comfortably at home, one is Affiliate marketing and the other is Drop shipping 🙂 I love Affiliate Marketing because I love writing content. It is good way to earn side income and at the same time, turn into a potential full-time career too.
Hi Arthur! I’d say there are a lot of ways to make a lot money online, but dropshipping and affiliate marketing are two incredibly lucrative ones. Especially AM, obviously. I’d expect a writer to be into it given how much time you have to spend on it.
Great post again. One question. While there are varieties of products to promote? Wouldn’t concentrating on one or two products a better way to start? As we can focus our marketing effort on them alone, rather than spreading ourselves thin and making no traction?
Excellent question Kenny. What I meant by “varieties” was that you could choose almost anything to promote. Of course concentrating on a small number of products would be a good idea. I just wanted to get the point across that affiliate marketers can choose any niche. Hope that answered your question!
Great video and a solid well-structured post on why you should start affiliate marketing. It really made me realise just why I got into affiliate marketing in the first instance. It made complete sense to me, was well written and very helpful for those that do not know exactly what it is!
Thanks Simon! While I was writing it I definitely felt the way you did. It’s a good industry to be in! Thanks for sharing!
Hi, Makki
You make affiliate marketing sound so good.
Are there any other methods of marketing products than through a website?
Is it possible to just make a website where the only thing you have is to click on ads where we earn money each time someone click on the ads?
Tove
Hi Tove! Of course you can do that. Those type of sites are pretty common. But then you’re getting into cost-per-action (CPA) and straying away from affiliate marketing.
The best way is still through a website. Other places are hard to post a link in. A website is the best way to grow a following. Well, social media is another way, but if you do that then you can only affiliate market once you have a lot of influence.
These are all great reasons to start affiliate marketing! I think the main things I liked that attracted me to it where the ability to work from anywhere as well as you don’t physically need a product. I have a friend who is making money selling items on Amazon but he has to coordinate with suppliers in China and it seems like a lot of work.
Your friend is probably drop shipping. That’s what it sounds like to me, at least. Drop shipping is easier than regular eCommerce, but it’s still a hassle in my opinion. Affiliate marketing is the way to go. Thanks for commenting Jeremy!