Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online. Practically anyone can get involved in affiliate marketing in South Africa, and you can use it to generate a relatively passive and remote income.
As long as you take the right steps, getting started with affiliate marketing is also pretty simple. This guide will give you a brief breakdown of everything you need to know about affiliate marketing in South Africa.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing strategy where affiliates promote a brand and get paid for each successful promotion or sale. This is often done through the use of a special affiliate link or tracking code. Every sale or lead generated as a consequence of the referral will result in a commission payment from the company to the affiliate. Affiliates can be people, businesses, or websites that advertise a company’s goods or services in return for a commission.
Affiliate marketing offers a win-win situation for businesses and affiliates. Businesses only pay affiliates for successful sales, so the ROI is always good and there’s little to no risk involved. Affiliates can easily start working with brands and making money online, making it a great way to earn money from your audience.
Why Do Affiliate Marketing in South Africa?
The great thing about affiliate marketing in South Africa is that it’s so easy to get into. You don’t need to score special brand sponsorships or deals. As long as you have a platform to promote a brand and an audience, you can start working as an affiliate.
Loads of businesses offer affiliate programs that are free to join. This means practically anyone can sign up and start promoting brands. With affiliate marketing, there is also unlimited potential for how much you could earn. Because you get paid based on a performance basis, the better you can promote a brand, the more money you can earn. If you’re looking for a relatively easy way to monetise your online presence or access new revenue streams, then affiliate marketing is a great option.
How to Do Affiliate Marketing in South Africa
While affiliate marketing in South Africa will differ depending on what brands you work with and what channels you use for promotion, there are a few general steps you’ll need to follow to become a successful affiliate.
Establish Your Promotional Channels
First, you’ll need a platform to promote your affiliate links. This could be through a blog, social media channels, a podcast, a YouTube channel, or anywhere else that you can build an audience and share promotional content. Of course, you can also use a combination of different channels for more impactful affiliate marketing.
Build an Audience
You can’t do successful affiliate marketing in South Africa if you don’t have an engaged audience. You’ll need to use your marketing channels to build up an audience that listens and trusts you. The larger and more active your audience is, the better your chances of earning affiliate commissions through them. Many brands want to know stats about your audience before you can join their affiliate program.
Join the Right Affiliate Program
It’s important that you work with the right brands for affiliate marketing. The products you promote need to align with your own personal brand and your audience’s interests. This is why it’s a good idea to focus your affiliate marketing efforts on a specific niche. You can join popular affiliate programs like Amazon Affiliates, or reach out to smaller brands and see if they have affiliate opportunities available. You can run a simple online search for affiliate programs related to your product or niche and you should find plenty of opportunities.
Strategically Promote the Brand
When you join an affiliate program you will get a unique tracking link or promo code. Promote this code to your audience to try to generate affiliate sales. It’s important that you don’t push brands and products too heavily, and that you are strategic about how you promote products and what products you promote. The key thing is that you should only promote affiliate products that add value to your audience. If you come across as too “salesy”, your audience could lose interest.
There are plenty of opportunities for affiliate marketing in South Africa. As long as you have an audience and find relevant brands to work with, you could use affiliate marketing to open up a stream of passive revenue. The better you become at promoting brands as an affiliate, the more earning potential you’ll unlock.
