How to earn money online from affiliate marketing with zero investment?

How to earn money online from affiliate marketing with zero investmentHow to earn money online from affiliate marketing with zero investment?


I have been trying to find various ways to earn money online when I am free during weekends. One of the business ideas that came to my mind was Affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is where you can make money online with zero investment by selling products that you do not own. Affiliate marketing is famous terminology in foreign countries. People make their living with this online business. It has slowly emerged in India and people started making their living here too. While I am still in research stage, I could able to gather some key things which I want to share it with you today. What is affiliate marketing all about? How one can make their living with affiliate marketing by selling products? What marketing strategies one can adopt to maximize income from affiliate marketing?

Also Read: 10 Best Small Business Ideas which are trending now in 2016

What is affiliate marketing?


If you are already familiar, you can skip this section.

Affiliate means, officially connected or associated with an organization. Affiliate marketing is a process of earning income in the form of commission by way of promoting the products other people or company. It is a sort of performance-based marketing in which the affiliates are rewarded for each visitor or customer brought by his own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players:

  • The merchant also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'
  • The network that contains offers for the affiliates to decide from and also concerned about the payments
  • The publisher also known as 'the affiliate'
  • The customer.

With the passage of time, the market has become too complex, which resulted in the rise of a secondary level of players such as agencies of affiliate management, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.

Generally, Affiliate marketing is baffled with referral marketing as both forms are sales driven and uses third parties to reach to the retailer. However, both are separate forms of marketing and the foremost difference between them is that affiliate marketing depends purely upon financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing depends upon trust and personal relationships to drive sales.

It is neither harmful nor illegal, as you are simply using a particular link provided to you instead of a direct link to link to any site.

Should you require any specific educational qualification to become affiliate marketer?


No qualification is required to become an affiliate marketer, though having good copywriting skills and marketing skills will be an added advantage.

Flipkart has been one of the early adopters of affiliate marketing as a channel in India. It runs one of the best affiliate programs in India. You can become an affiliate without a website. But, its requirements are “resources” and you can achieve success only with quality networks that allow affiliate links.

Also Read: Ways to earn money online by writing artilces without owning website

Which are major companies offering affiliate marketing in India?


There are very few affiliate companies that are based in India and are flourishing to make their mark and liked by a majority of Indian webmasters. The following are the few examples of the websites that are leading in an exemplary way in their fields:

  • Top Online Shopping Affiliate Programs: – Amazon.in, Flipkart.com, Jabong.com, Snapdeal.com.
  • Top Matrimonies related Affiliate Program: – Shaadi.com, Jeevansathi.com, Bharatmatrimony.com.
  • Top Tour related Affiliate Program: – MakeMyTrip.com, TripAdvisor.com, Yatra.com
  • Top  Affiliate Program for jobs at India:-Monster.com, Indeed.com, FreeLancer.in.
  • Other Affiliate Programs In India: – Apple.com, Radisson.com, Reebok.com.

When you sign-up with above companies, you would get referral link. Sometimes you would also get product specific links for special deals during festive seasons / off-season sales.

How to market products through affiliate marketing?


There are several ways to market products by means of affiliate marketing on the Internet without having a website of your own. You can easily become an affiliate marketer by incorporating the affiliate links into the matter of your sent emails, relocating affiliate links in communities of common discussion like discussion boards, or blogs, writing articles on websites that feature contents that are basically user-generated. Writingan e-book that can contain the affiliate links is also a good idea to use.  The various ways of affiliate marketing are summarized below:-

  • Online Discussion Communities
  • E-books
  • Email
  • Article Websites
  • Post affiliate links on social media websites
  • Post articles or affiliate links on websites that feature classified ads.

Today affiliate program is one of the best sources to generate profits online. The amount of money that can be earned from affiliate programs is limitless. It all depends on which program you’re promoting and how much conversion you are making.

How is affiliate marketing business in India?


While US, UK and other Asian countries are already familiar with this terminology, this is slowly emerging in India now. Affiliate marketing is widening its scope in India with great demand by several western companies because India is one of the largest marketing hub in the world and has an outstanding potential for innovative business. Second reason is cheap payouts with less investment plans. Third reason is free advertisement to a large audience.  Most of these affiliate agencies hire best Indian bloggers and webmasters to showcase their product and services. Gradually, Indian companies are now building various marketing programs to reach larger target audience. Do you believe that affiliate marketing earners are earning commissions in the range of 0.5% to 20% based on the product you would promote. As an example, if you are able to sell mobile phone on flipkart / Amazon through your referral links to your friends you would be able to get Rs 100 to Rs 5,000 (depending on the value of the phone).

Also Read: 10 Top Genuine ways to earn money when you are free

What precautions to be taken while doing affiliate marketing?


If you are promoting a product via blogs, articles and other legal methods, then there is no problem. However, if you start spamming or adding unseen charges to people, then you are breaking the law. If you are going to use email marketing, then do ensure that prior permission is sought before you send emails, and always provide an unsubscribe link at the bottom of your emails. And if someone asks you to stop, then the emails should be discontinued. Continuing to send emails turns you into a spammer; this is where the affiliate marketing people will pounce upon you for violating spamming laws.

Conclusion:  India is a large country with strong market base, thus affiliate marketing can grow by leaps and bounds. It is a method to earn unlimited income and needs no qualification. The growing popularity of online business will give boost to affiliate marketing. Register yourself with top giants offering affiliate marketing, promote links with your friends on websites / Facebook / twitter / online forums and get paid with commissions. I would provide more insights once I started seeing some decent income from affiliate marketing.

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Suresh
How to earn money online from affiliate marketing

Suresh KP

7 comments

  1. Hi, your article is informative. I would like to read more from you about affiliate marketing. Very useful tips. Thanks!

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