How To Use Affiliate Marketing Networks 

Going down the route of affiliate marketing is the easiest way by far to start monetizing blogs and websites. With the products and marketing tools already created by someone else, all you need to worry about is sending targeted traffic to your affiliate links to start earning commission. But where do you get the products from?

There are lots of places actually. The most obvious being Amazon or Clickbank but for higher commissions you want to look at either working directly with sellers or via one of the many affiliate networks out there.

Affiliate networks work with loads of advertisers who offer affiliate programs, meaning that everything you need is accessed through the one portal: The advertisers links, banners, codes and everything else you need. One of the advantages with this approach is that you have one affiliate link rather than one for every advertiser you promote.

The Advantage Of Affiliate Networks

You join the network first then look for advertisers selling products that fit your niche and apply to join their programme: Once accepted you get access through the affiliate network portal to all of their promotional materials.

I recently set up a website about creative guitar playing and when I started looking for advertisers and suitable products I went to the Commission Junction network (now called CJ affiliate by Conversant) first as I’d heard of them. I found a number of advertisers I wanted to work with and got started.

The way this works is that once you have joined an advertisers program in the network you can search for links to their banners or to their entire product range.

The types of links available vary from advertiser to advertiser but generally they will have a range of generic banners and some seasonal, special offer or time specific promotions. If you want to promote specific products you can search for them and use the codes provided to add to your blog or website.

Affiliate Marketing Training 

With most advertisers in this network you can choose between html or javascript and choose to encrypt your affiliate link (so that no-one can nick your sales) Usually you have some options as how you want the product displayed – image only, image with text or just text. In every case your link is embedded in the code so that any sales are trackable to you.

I wrote a post for my guitar site earlier reviewing several products from one of the advertisers I promote through CJ and it was a pretty straightforward process. I did have a little learning curve to go through with the code options for the products and how they display on the page but nothing too tricky. All in all this is a great way to manage multiple advertisers and products.

For more information on affiliate marketing, using links, banners and code to monetize websites and much more check out the SFM training platform on the link below.